HOUETTES 


«*•+•••••••»*•*••••••••••*•  +  *• 


••••**•*•»»***••»••• 


'• 


"Mr,  Fawcett  was  the  man  of  whom  Longfellow  expected 
more  than  of  any  of  the  other  young  American  authors, 
both  as  a  poet  and  a  novelist."  —  American  Queen. 


EDGAR  FAWCETT'S  WRITINGS. 


SONG   AND   STORY. 

i  vol.    Z2mo.     Printed  on  imported  hand-made  paper,  with 
gilt  top.    $1.50. 

"  The  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  gives  high  praise  to  Mr.  FAW- 
CETT'S poetry,  and  compares  his  briefer  lyrics  to  the  famous 
Emaux  et  Camees  of  Theophile  Gautier."  —  Beacon. 

"  Possessed  of  the  singing  voice,  the  artist's  intolerance  of 
slovenly  workmanship,  and  an  unerring  sense  of  proportion, 
Mr.  FAWCETT  should  fulfil  the  most  sanguine  expectations. 
.  .  .  They  are  filled  with  the  charm  of  suggestiveness ;  scarcely 
a  poem  but  brings  some  new  thought,  some  strange  analogy,  to 
haunt  the  brain  after  reading  it."  — CHARLES  G.  D.  ROBERTS, 
in  The  Week. 


TINKLING   CYMBALS. 

X  vol.     1 2 mo.     $1.50. 

A  brilliant  novel  of  New  York  and  Newport  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  by  one  of  its  closest  and  most  observing  students. 
"  Enchantingly  interesting." —  The  Inter-Ocean  (Chicago). 


ADVENTURES   OF   A   WIDOW, 
x  vol.     i2mo.     $1.50. 

"Mr.  FAWCETT  is,  without  question,  one  of  the  best  of  our 
younger  novelists.  .  .  .  He  is  thoroughly  at  home  among  the 
people  and  the  scenes  he  chooses  to  depict."  —  Beacon  (Boston). 

"  As  a  writer,  Mr.  FAWCETT  is  most  enjoyable.  He  has  won- 
derful command  of  emotion,  and  in  his  recent  novels  there  are 
many  passages  of  singular  strength,  hot  passion,  or  most  moving 
pathos.  ...  He  is  irresistibly  attractive." 


TICKNOR  AND  COMPANY,    BOSTON. 


SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES 


(BEING  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF 

MR.  MARK  MANHATTAN) 


EDITED    BY 

EDGAR    FAWCETT 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  WIDOW,"   "TINKLING  CYMBALS,1 
"  AN  AMBITIOUS  WOMAN,"  ETC. 


BOSTON 
TICKNOR    AND    COMPANY 

1885 


Copyright,  /55j, 
By  EDGAR  FAWCETT. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 


ELECTROTYPED  BY 
C.  J.  PETERS  &  SON,  BOSTON. 


p^ 


JFrtentJ, 
WHITELAW    REID, 

WHOSE  VALUED  ENCOURAGEMENT  HAS  STIMULATED  ALL 

THAT  MAY  BE  OF  WORTH  IN  THIS 

VOLUME, 

/   CORDIALLY  DEDICATE  IT. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.   THE  LADY  WHO  HATES   TO  BE  FORGOT- 
TEN    1 

II.   THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS,  13 

III.  THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT   ....  24 

IV.  THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES  .  35 
V.   THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER  .     .  48 

VI.   THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS      ...  63 
VII.  THE  LADY  WHO   GROWS  OLD  UNGRACE- 
FULLY   76 

VIII.  A  MlLLIONNAIRE  MARTYR 88 

IX.  A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA    .     .  100 

X.  A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN     ....  114 
XI.  THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "  OH, 

MY!" 128 

XII.  THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK    .  141 

XIII.  A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE 157 

XIV.  THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IN-LAW     ...  172 
XV.  THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES  .  185 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XVI.  THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAR  WITH 

SAFETY 200 

XVII.  AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS    .     .  211 
XVIII.  THE  YOUNG   LADY   WHO    TRIES   Too 

HARD .  S  226 

XIX.  A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE 238 

XX.  THE  YOUNG   MAN  WHO  PUSHES   His 

WAY      . 255 

XXI.   THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED    ....  270 

XXII.   THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES  .     .     .  281 

XXIII.  A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL     ...  294 

XXIV.  THE  LADY  WHO  is  CONSERVATIVE  .     .  310 
XXV.  THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  is  GLIB  .      .    .  326 

XXVI.  THE  LADY  WHO  is  SENSATIONAL    .    .  339 
XXVII.   THE    GENTLEMAN    WHO    LIVED    Too 

LONG     .    .    .    .    .  354 


SOCIAL    SILHOUETTES. 


i. 

THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN. 

I  USED  finely  to  take  for  granted,  wlren  I  first 
cast  the  most  casually  observing  eye  upon  social 
New  York  matters,  that  in  the  gaudy  and  dizzy 
whirl  which  is  summed  up  by  "  going  everywhere," 
the  person  or  persons  who  went  everywhere  al- 
ways felt  the  sure  and  keen  spur  of  a  permanent 
enjoyment.  It  did  not  seem  credible  that  the 
special  development  which  cynic,  optimist,  moral- 
ist, or  denunciator  have  all  frankly  conceded  to 
mean  "  society  "  could  exist  without  a  universal 
desire  and  aptitude  for  sincere  recreation.  Those 
who  drank  of  the  effervescing  waters  were  thirsty, 
and  they  drank  because  they  thirsted.  I  had  no 
suspicion  that  they  drank  for  any  other  reason. 
I  was  young,  and  I  had  not  yet  learned  my  fellow- 
ship with  mortals  who  were  like  mills  plashing 
in  an  almost  empty  stream,  and  productive  of  no 
appreciable  grist.  The  apartments  of  my  hosts 

1 


2  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

were  as  yet,  for  me,  halls  dedicated  to  unmixed 
diversion.  I  was  prepared  for  inordinate  folly  and 
for  untold  flippancy.  I  prided  myself  upon  being 
wise  in  my  generation,  and  upon  having  my 
wisdom  as  ready  and  tangible  as  the  modish  flower 
in  my  button-hole.  I  felt  within  me  a  vast  capa- 
city for  sneering  and  depreciating.  I  had  culti- 
vated a  certain  upward  flourish  of  the  hand 
toward  my  mustache,  and  a  certain  sarcastic  ele- 
vation of  the  eyebrows.  In  my  fresh  and  fervid 
adolescence,  I  took  the  scriptural  Solomon  at  his 
word.  It  was  all  vanity.  Of  course  it  was.  Miss 
Van  Dam,  who  had  a  neck  like  a  swan's,  and  little 
red-gold  curls  clustering  dense  and  delightful  just 
at  the  milky  nape  of  it  —  who  gave  me  a  smile  by 
six  good  degrees  brighter  than  that  which  she 
gave  to  the  famed  despot  of  flirts,  Dick  Allegha- 
ney  —  who  had  "talked  the  German"  with  me  for 
three  successive  balls  when  at  least  twenty  men 
would  have  mortgaged  the  gloss  of  their  radiant 
boots  to  have  had  her  as  a  partner  —  yes,  even 
that  sweet  reigning  bit  of  feminine  deity,  Miss 
Van  Dam,  was  all  vanity,  like  all  the  rest  of  it. 
Such  was  my  superb,  placid  theory  then.  I  knew 
very  well  that  there  were  many  people  in  the  gay 
crowd  who  did  not  begin  to  get  the  nice  zest  from 
it  that  I  secured.  But  I  accepted  unthinkingly  the 
innocent  belief  that  everybody  attained  some  sort 
of  positive  pleasure.  I  never  thought  otherwise. 
It  never  occurred  to  me  to  think  otherwise,  at  first. 
But  ultimately  I  drifted  into  the  habit  of  observ- 


THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN.  .    3 

ing.  Observation,  for  a  man  of  brains,  is  a  dan- 
gerous mental  mood.  With  the  average  man  of 
fashion  it  is  quite  harmless,  and  for  reasons  need- 
less to  state. 

Those  who  affirm  that  I  became  an  ironical  and 
merciless  critic  of  New  York  society  because  Lucy 
Van  Dam  rejected  me  and  married  that  recent  im- 
portation of  English  idiocy,  Lord  Slantingforehead, 
are  at  liberty  to  circulate  their  fatuous  dogmas.  I 
care  nothing  for  such  baseless  gossip.  I  esteem 
it,  indeed,  a  proof  of  weakness  that  I,  Mark 
Manhattan,  should  even  respond  by  vague  allu- 
sion to  their  acrid  aspersions.  I  have  become  an 
observer  for  various  reasons.  Prominent  among 
these,  I  think,  is  a  tendency  toward  preferring  a 
sensible  book  and  a  big,  elastic  lounge  in  my  nice 
suite  of  rooms  at  "The  Bolingbroke,"  to  inane 
babble  and  suicidal  brandy-and-soda  at  the  Metro- 
politan Club  long  after  reputable  hours.  I  sup- 
pose that  if  I  had  not  become  an  observer, 
these  impressions,  which  I  now  hand  to  my 
good  friend,  Mr.  Edgar  Fawcett  (and  which  he 
will  publish  at  his  discretion,  and  with  what- 
ever alterations  in  the  way  of  sjmtax  or  elimina- 
tion his  trusted  taste  may  find  proper),  would 
never  have  been  written. 

My  first  exploit  as  regards  pure  and  simple 
observation  is  directly  traceable  to  Mrs.  Rldgeway 
Bridgeway.  No  one  had  ever  before  known  the 
Bridgeways  until  this  lady  insisted  upon  having 
their  importance  brilliantly  transpire.  It  was  said, 


4  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

after  she  had  successfully  stormed  the  portals  of 
patrician  favor,  that  she  had  effected  her  deter- 
mined purpose  of  *'  knowing  people  "  because  so- 
ciety, languidly  gazing  at  her  ubiquitous  card,  had 
half  made  up  its  mind  that  she  must  be  a  Ridge  way 
before  soundly  deciding  that  she  was  in  reality  a 
Bridgeway.  Everybody  had,  of  course,  heard  of 
the  Ridgeways ;  there  had  been  a  Ridgeway  in  New 
York  as  far  back  as  1830.  It  was  a  pretty  good 
distance  to  recollect,  but  a  few  Knickerbocker 
grandmothers  had  been  able  to  revive  their  senile 
intelligences  and  state  that  a  family  of  Ridgeways 
had  once  taken  a  house  in  Bond  Street,  had  "got 
about,"  and  had  afterward  gone  abroad.  The 
name  had  a  certain  half-spurious  familiarity, 
drowsily  indorsed  by  fading  grandmammas.  But 
Mrs.  Bridgeway,  who  was  not  at  all  a  Ridgeway, 
profited  by  this  dubious  investigation.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  she  rapidly  secured  a  distinct  pres- 
tige. She  had  a  large  basement  house  in  Thirty- 
Seventh  Street,  and  she  issued  cards  to  receptions 
and  dinners  with  a  grandly  reckless  hospitality. 
She  introduced  people  to  her  husband,  and  in  a 
measure  Mr*  Bridgeway  (who  was  a  pale,  quies- 
cent man,  with  a  probably  ample  fortune  made  in 
some  New  England  city)  became  mildly  popular. 
But  he  never  achieved  the  salience  (I  will  not  say 
popularity )  of  his  wife.  He  was  always  a  kind 
of  matrimonial  shadow.  I  can  see  him  now,  while 
I  write  these  confessions,  looming  at  six  good  feet 
of  lank  height,  with  his  roseate  baldness,  his  timid 


THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN.       5 

articulation,  his  sallow  visage,  his  tremulous  eye- 
glasses, his  long,  thin,  restless  hands,  and  his  per- 
petual roll  of  two  rather  glutinous,  dead-gray  eyes 
in  the  direction  of  his  dominating  wife. 

Dominating,  in  a  connubial  sense,  Mrs.  Ridgeway 
Bridgeway  indeed  was.  She  had  evidently  long 
ago  put  her  husband  in  the  background,  and  he 
made  a  most  conveniently  neutral  and  unobtrusive 
one.  But  she  herself  was  an  immense  and  com- 
prehensive foreground.  Not  physically  speaking, 
but  in  the  sense  of  a  vivacious,  feverish,  and  lit- 
erally ebullient  personality.  She  always  impressed 
me  as  a  woman  on  the  verge  of  the  emotional  boil- 
ing-point. She  had  achieved  her  purpose  when  I 
met  her.  She  had  got  into  society.  She  knew 
pretty  nearly  everybody.  I  had  the  fancy  that 
she  was  civil  to  me  because  I  had  not  got  into 
society,  but  because  I  had  taken  a  hereditary  posi- 
tion there,  and  did  not  only  know  pretty  nearly 
everybody,  but  knew  (or  had  the  easy  claim  to 
know)  all  people  who  were  of  the  least  note.  But 
if  Mrs.  Bridgeway  was  a  strenuous  snob,  I  never 
found  it  out.  Others  may  have  made  such  discov- 
ery; I  did  not.  It  takes  a  snob  to  cafch  a  snob,  as 
it  takes  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief.  Mrs.  Bridgeway 
and  I  met,  and  became  undoubted  friends.  I  saw 
her  everywhere.  She  never  missed  a  kettledrum, 
even ;  there  is  enormous  significance  in  that  simple 
statement,  for  the  leaves  of  Vallambrosa  are  not 
more  multitudinous  than  at  certain  seasons  are 
the  kettledrums  of  New  York.  I  once  retrospec- 


6  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

lively  decided,  at  the  end  of  a  very  festal  Febru- 
ary, that  I  had  taken  Mrs.  Bridgeway  in  to  dinner 
twelve  distinct  times  since  the  thirty-first  day  of 
the  preceding  January.  We  were  still  excellent 
friends,  but  I  had  now  fully  recognized  and  ac- 
cepted one  unpalatable  fact :  Mrs.  Bridgeway 
bored  me.  I  failed  wholly,  at  first,  to  compre- 
hend why. 

She  was  unquestionably  pretty.  Her  figure  was 
spare,  and  with  a  hint  of  angularity ;  but  it  was 
very  graceful,  and  she  knew  how  to  move  and  pose 
it  with  a  distinction  that  quite  escaped  glaring 
assertiveness.  She  matted  her  blond  hair  in  a  sort 
of  fuzz  low  over  her  straight  eyebrows  and  neatly- 
cut  nose ;  she  had  eyes  that  were  as  actively  gray 
as  her  husband's  were  tamely  so ;  she  possessed  a 
mouth  whose  smile  might  have  been  more  ample 
in  its  disclosures  of  white  and  shapely  teeth,  with- 
out losing  that  charm  which  hid  in  the  winsome 
curl  of  its  pink  lips,  or  the  nestling  dimple  at 
either  of  its  corners.  And  yet  this  woman  bored 
me.  Not  by  any  means  that  she  was  naturally 
stupid  or  dull ;  I  had  long  ago  decided  that  she 
was  dowered  with  a  capable  brain.  Not  by  any 
means  that  she  chose  heavy  conversational  sub- 
jects; she  always,  on  the  contrary,  revealed  a 
perfect  willingness  to  discuss  the  most  ordinary 
flippancies.  Not  by  any  means  that  she  carried 
propriety  to  the  verge  of  prudishness ;  for  although 
her  line,  in  this  respect,  was  unmistakably  drawn, 
it  lay  just  at  the  bounds  of  a  pretty  and  whole- 


THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN.       7 

some  female  dignity.  Why,  then,  did  Mrs.  Ridge- 
way  Bridge  way  bore  me  ?  I  reflected ;  I  ratio- 
cinated ;  I  summarized.  And  at  length  the  truth 
burst,  vivid  and  indisputable. 

Mrs.  Bridgeway  was  bored  herself.  There  lay 
the  succinct  and  lucid  reason  for  my  own  ennui. 
She  was  living  a  life  of  complete  insincerity.  Her 
heart  was  not  in  her  work.  Her  fashionable  career 
was  conducted  on  automatic  and  mechanical  prin- 
ciples. She  did  not  go  out  because  she  liked  to 
go  out.  She  went  out  because  she  had  a  morbid 
hatred  of  being  forgotten. 

The  more  I  mused  upon  my  discovery,  the  more 
convinced  I  became  of  its  vital  truth.  And  nar- 
row watching  served  only  to  fix  my  belief.  She 
enjoyed  nothing  in  the  sphere  to  which  she  had 
dedicated  her  best  energies  and  talents.  She 
found  the  pleasure  of  triumph,  of  having  it  said 
and  accepted  that  she  was  dans  le  monde,  but 
she  found  no  other  pleasure  whatever.  There 
was  something  almost  ghastly  in  her  rigid  adher- 
ence to  what  she  detested.  She  lacked  the  cour- 
age to  fling  away  her  hand  and  quit  the  game. 
She  went  on  playing  because  others  played  — 
because  it  was  the  approved  thing  to  do.  She 
had  been  bitten  by  a  craving  to  have  herself  con- 
ceded an  aristocrat.  She  had  lost  the  power  of 
securing  any  comfort  from  obscurity.  If  the  whole 
system  of  fashionable  society  had  been  swept  out 
of  existence,  she  would  have  rejoiced.  While  it 
continued,  she  must  be  in  it  and  of  it.  She 


8  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

secretly  despised  and  loathed  it.  She  thought  it 
a  vast  pretension  and  sham.  But  she  must  pre- 
tend among  the  pretenders,  and  sham  among  the 
shammers. 

I  remember  very  clearly  the  special  evening  on 
which  I  resolved  to  tell  Mrs.  Bridgeway  of  my 
convictions.  Of  course,  I  meant  to  do  so  with  all 
due  courtesy  and  discretion.  It  was  after  a  par- 
ticularly splendid  dinner,  of  which  we  had  been 
common  participants.  When  the  gentlemen  re- 
joined the  ladies  in  the  great  drawing-room,  I 
dropped  into  a  soft  easy-chair  at  Mrs.  Bridgeway's 
side. 

"  You  did  not  enjoy  the  dinner  at  all,"  I  boldly 
began.  "  I  was  watching  you  across  the  table. 
You  seemed  distraite,  out  of  spirits." 

She  looked  at  me  with  unconcealed  surprise. 
Then  she  gave  one  of  her  high,  clear,  quick  laughs. 
She  always  had  the  same  nervous  mode  of  laugh- 
ing as  of  speaking. 

"You  were  too  far  away,"  she  said.  "That 
accounted  for  everything." 

"  Ah,  you  don't  mean  what  you  tell  me ! "  I 
ventured.  "  I  am  afraid,  Mrs.  Bridgeway,"  I  went 
on  with  unwonted  earnestness  and  gravity,  "  that 
you  failed  to  enjoy  the  dinner  for  widely  different 
reasons." 

"  What  reasons  ?  "  she  sharply  asked. 

"Very  general  ones,  —  those  which  make  you 
fail  to  care  for  society  under  any  of  its  con- 
ditions." 


THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN.       9 

"Who  told  you  that?"  she  questioned  with 
tart  briskness  of  tone. 

"  My  own  imagination  is  my  sole  informant,"  I 
said,  summoning  all  my  amiability  as  I  leaned 
several  degrees  nearer  to  where  she  sat. 

She  drew  a  long  breath,  as  though  one  of  relief, 
slightly  closing  her  eyes.  Presently  she  started 
into  a  new  posture.  She  laid  one  slim  hand,  in 
its  long  glove,  upon  my  arm,  and  then  instantly 
withdrew  it.  She  was  looking  at  me  with  exces- 
sive earnestness. 

"I  see,"  she  said,  low  of  voice  but  quite  rapidly; 
"you  have  read  me.  You  have  found  out  my 
secret.  I  often  have  wondered  that  nobody  evel 
did  so  before." 

"Is  it,  then,  a  secret?"  I  asked. 

"Oh !  a  deep  one.  But  I  don't  mind  letting  you 
know  it — especially  since  you  have  guessed.it.  I 
don't  enjoy  society.  I  abominate  society.  There, 
the  truth  is  laid  bare." 

"But  you  go  into  society.  You  go  more  than 
most  women." 

She  shook  her  head  in  an  odd  way  for  an 
instant.  I  perceived,  too,  that  she  was  covertly 
biting  her  lip.  I  realized  that  for  once  in  her  life 
of  form  and  ceremony  she  was  radically  sincere. 
She  no  longer  bored  me  now ;  she  interested  me 
extremely.  I  was  prepared  for  her  next  words, 
when  they  sounded,  fleet,  somewhat  faint,  and 
rather  close  to  my  listening  ear. 

"  I  do  go  into  society  more  than  most  women ; 


10  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

you  are  perfectly  right  in  saying  so.  But  I  hate 
it,  all  the  same.  I  can't  leave  it ;  it  clings  to  me 
like  a  burr.  It  was  a  sort  of  craze  with  me  at 
first.  I  sha'n't  assume  any  airs  with  you ;  you  're 
a  Manhattan  ;  you  know  I  was  n't  anybody  at  the 
start.  I  began  in  fine  earnest ;  I  thought  it  splen- 
did to  be  an  aristocrat,  to  look  down  on  the  bour- 
geoisie, to  shine  among  the  social  elect.  Well,  do 
I  think  so  still?  That  is  hard  to  answer.  No 
and  yes.  I  have  my  moments  of  vast  democratic 
yearning.  I  have  my  convictions  that  I  was 
never  meant  by  nature  to  move  along  in  the 
pompous  and  meaningless  masquerade.  Ah,  Mr. 
Manhattan,  I  have  my  resolves  also." 

"  Your  resolves  ?  "  I  queried. 

"  Yes.  Indeed,  yes !  I  determine,  on  a  certain 
afternoon,  let  us  say,  to  quit  the  whole  nonsense 
—  to  make  domesticity,  repose,  tranquillity,  my 
future  aim  and  incentive.  But  when  it  becomes 
evening,  I  ring  for  my  maid ;  I  have  myself  dressed 
for  this  or  that  ball  and  dinner.  My  good  inten- 
tions vanish  in  an  hour  or  two.  And  there  is  only 
one  explanation  of  their  departure.  I  hate  the 
idea  of  being  forgotten.  I  could  manage  my  good 
intentions  so  easily  if  it  were  not  for  that  one 
wretched  proviso  —  leiiig  forgotten!  You  will 
say  that  such  feeling  implies  a  respect  for  the 
fashionable  world.  But  I  have  n't  the  remotest 
respect  for  it.  I  think  its  frivolity  disgusting  and 
shocking.  Yet  I  can't  help  dreading  the  idea  of 
not  being  seen  in  it  hereafter.  There  is  a  certain 


THE  LADY  WHO  HATES  TO  BE  FORGOTTEN.    11 

vogue,  chic,  atmosphere,  fascination,  about  it,  that 
will  not  let  me  leave  it,  try  hard  as  I  may. 
And  the  whole  matter  comes  simply  to  this:  I 
hate  to  have  it  forget  me.  If  I  were  sure  it  would 
still  recollect  me  as  one  of  its  important  members, 
I  would  forswear  all  its  festivities  now  and  for- 
ever." 

"You  want  to  reconcile  distinction  with  ob- 
livion," I  said,  perhaps  a  bit  sententiously,  but 
with  no  lack  of  sympathy  in  my  response ;  for  I 
had  a  strong  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Bridgeway  from 
that  moment.  I  had  completely  understood  her. 
She  ceased,  thenceforward,  to  bore  me.  Indeed, 
she  always  afterward  interested  me,  and  we 
became  better  friends  than  ever. 

Later  on  I  grew  convinced  that  Mrs.  Bridgeway 
was,  and  still  remains,  a  very  typical  personage. 
The  woman  who  hates  to  be  forgotten  forms  a 
most  emphatic  element  of  our  modern  society. 
She  does  not  care  a  button  for  the  high  place  that 
she  has  won,  and  yet  you  could  not  tempt  her  to 
abate  one  jot  of  her  supremacy.  She  is  not  a 
votary  of  fashion ;  she  is  a  self-made  martyr  to  it. 
De colletS  as  may  be  her  robe  of  shimmering  satin, 
or  scant  as  may  be  her  bosom-gear  of  tulle,  there 
is  always  a  little  chafing  undergarment  hidden 
somewhere  beneath,  if  only  what  one  might 
describe  as  a  chemisette  of  serge.  She  scans  the 
morning  paper,  after  every  ball,  with  an  avid  eye. 
If  her  name  is  not  mentioned,  if  her  costume  is 
not  recorded,  she  suffers  pangs  of  chagrin.  Her 


12  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

matutinal  roll  becomes  lead,  and  her  draught  of 
fragrant  coffee  nauseous.  Her  crown  is  a  thorny 
one,  but  she  would  not  give  the  ache  of  its  wounds 
for  all  the  painless  serenity  you  could  offer.  She 
has  borne  off  her  palm  from  the  struggle,  and 
though  it  now  seems  only  a  crackling,  withered 
leaf,  she  prizes  and  cleaves  to  it.  Her  intoxica- 
tion is  severely  and  terribly  simple ;  for  the 
woman  who  hates  to  be  forgotten  dreads  the  peril 
of  illicit  flirtation,  of  reckless  tampering  with 
res'pectability.  She  knows  that  one  false  step  may 
make  her  austerely  and  irrevocably  forgotten,  and 
so  she  keeps  her  foot  well  aloof  from  any  such  im- 
perilling abyss.  For  this  reason  her  monotonous 
goings  and  comings  have  a  doleful  tedium.  She 
is  a  voluntary  captive  who  has  long  ago  ceased  to 
find  one  note  of  music  in  the  clank  of  her  own 
chains.  But  she  cannot  make  the  resolve  to 
bravely  rise  up  and  revolt  against  their  bondage. 
If  she  did  so,  her  next  step  would  be  the  attain- 
ment of  freedom.  And  what  would  the  poor 
creature  do  with  her  freedom,  while  incessantly 
stung  by  the  thought  of  how  all  her  former  fellow- 
prisoners  were  quietly  learning  to  forget  that  she 
had  once  shared  their  durance?  Learning  to 
forget !  Ah,  there  would  lie  the  worst  of  tortures 
for  this  woman  who  hates,  above  all  things,  to  be 
forgotten ! 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS.      13 


II. 

THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS. 

BEFORE  I  began  to  observe  in  any  critical  sense, 
I  had  got  to  know  Verplanck  Schenectady  very 
well  indeed.  From  childhood  I  had  always  in- 
vested his  name  with  a  certain  reverence,  which 
even  now,  when  I  am  thirty-four,  I  find  that  no 
amount  of  republican  radicalism  and  mature  com- 
mon sense  will  entirely  overcome.  My  poor,  dear 
dead  mother  used  to  say  to  me,  when  I  was  surely 
not  older  than  twelve,  "  Mark,  I  hear  that  young 
Verplanck  Schenectady  has  such  excellent  man- 
ners. His  mamma  is  very  proud  of  him.  She 
thinks  he  is  going  to  be  a  great  credit  to  the 
family." 

As  years  went  on,  this  promise  became  fulfil- 
ment. I  don't  know  how  Schenectady  acquitted 
himself  at  Oxford  ;  I  did  not  go  to  Oxford  myself, 
but  to  Harvard.  And  a  short  time  after  his  return 
from  abroad  I  met  him.  We  were  re-introduced, 
one  evening,  at  the  Metropolitan  Club.  He  was 
nearly  six  feet  tall,  and  excessively  blond.  He 
had  a  pale  face,  with  well-chiselled  features,  and  a 
pair  of  mild,  dark-blue  eyes.  His  hair,  brushed  in 
two  straight  lines  from  its  central  parting  rigidly 
over  either  temple  till  it  met  either  ear,  expressed 


14  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

the  sheen  and  compactness  of  metal.  You  had  no 
sense  of  any  individual  hairs ;  it  was  all  a  miracle 
of  glossy  attrition.  He  wore  trousers  and  coat  of 
a  faultless  fit ;  they  had  vertical  creases  in  them, 
here  and  there,  as  if  they  had  been  recently  ex- 
humed from  a  foreign  trunk,  though  perhaps  this 
effect  was  due  solely  to  the  sedulous  iron  of  his 
valet.  He  held  a  pair  of  tawny  dogskin  gloves  in 
one  white  hand,  on  which  glittered  more  than  a 
single  costly  ring.  It  had  been  "roundly  stated  at 
the  Metropolitan,  not  many  hours  ago,  that  he  was 
the  undoubted  possessor  of  seventy  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year,  through  his  long-deceased  father.  "  I 
know  it  for  a  fact  —  a  fact,  sir,"  had  affirmed  old 
Yanderveer,  who  is  the  most  dogmatic  of  our 
many  elderly  genteel  club  gossips.  But  I  have 
long  been  a  bristling  sceptic  with  relation  to  all 
Vanderveer's  "  facts,"  and  his  present  confidence 
of  statement  made  me  feel  secure  in  placing 
Schenectady's  income  at  no  higher  than  thirty 
thousand  dollars. 

The  young  Oxonian  shook  hands  with  me  very 
warmly.  "I'm  awfully  glad  to  meet  you,  old 
chap,"  he  said,  with  the  most  broadly  British  of 
accents.  He  talked,  afterward,  for  a  good  hour. 
At  the  close  of  our  converse  I  found  it  impossible 
to  recollect  anything  that  my  companion  had  said. 
I  could  recollect  his  manner,  however,  and  the 
guttural  drawl  of  his  pronunciation,  very  clearly. 
He  seemed,  indeed,  to  express  nothing  except  man- 
ner and  pronunciation.  He  was  not  by  any  means 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS.      15 

a  caricature;  I  should  deplore  implying  that  he 
was  in  the  faintest  degree  a  caricature.  The  effect 
which  he  produced  upon  me  was  one  of  prodigious 
and  overwhelming  gentlemanliness.  I  can  find  no 
other  word  than  "  gentlemanliness,"  and  yet  I  do 
not  like  the  word.  I  have  a  fancy  that  an  abso- 
lute gentleman  should  never  give  you  the  idea  that 
he  is  one  at  all,  —  that  the  belief  of  his  being  one 
should  rest  latent  and  unobtrusive  until  some  sug- 
gested doubt  calls  it  into  activity,  and  then  that 
your  assent  should  be  cordially  vehement,  while 
you  remembered  just  how  perfect  a  gentleman  he 
was.  But  with  Schenectady,  the  assertion,  in  this 
respect,  became  professionally  manifest.  He  shift- 
ed his  feet,  clad  in  their  effulgent  pointed  shoes  ; 
he  squared  his  elbows,  in  their  tight-fitting  broad- 
cloth ;  he  changed  the  postures  of  his  well-attired 
person;  he  slapped  his  leg  carelessly  with  his 
grasped  dogskin  gloves  ;  he  threw  back  his  small 
head,  balustraded  at  the  throat  by  its  high,  stiff 
collar, — he  did,  in  short,  every  minor  thing  of 
this  unimportant  kind,  as  though  the  movement 
were  a  result  of  some  special  patrician  art  and 
tact,  and  had  been  studiously  cultivated,  as  well, 
from  vigilant  watching  of  some  valued  model.  He 
seemed  to  me  like  a  person  of  the  most  placidly 
magnificent  confidence  in  his  own  correctness. 
There  was  something  enviable  about  his  disci- 
plined security.  All  his  little  acts  and  gestures 
appeared  to  have  a  pretty  cachet  upon  them,  like 
the  embroidered  crest  on  a  handkerchief.  He 


16  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

employed  the  words  "beastly,"  and  "swagger," 
and  "filthy,"  and  "jaw,"  and  "rot,"  with  so  much 
evident  serene  certainty  in  their  entire  fitness  for 
polite  usage,  that  I  began  to  acquire  a  reflective 
confidence  myself  in  his  flawless  behavior.  He 
must  be  right,  I  thought,  because  he  was  so  calmly 
convinced  of  his  own  decorum.  If  he  had  put  his 
feet  upon  the  back  of  a  chair,  or  dropped  a  frag- 
mentary cigarette  into  my  hock-and-seltzer,  or  skil- 
fully upset  one  of  our  democratic  spittoons  by  a 
single  kick,  I  don't  know  that  I  should  have 
viewed  these  acts  at  all  harshly,  in  my  present 
enthralled  mood.  A  little  later,  it  is  true,  I  might 
have  questioned  the  exact  English  authority  for 
their  commission ;  but  perhaps  even  then  I  should 
have  had  a  lurking  faith  that  they  had  all  been 
done  before  by  exalted  transatlantic  dignitaries. 
Schenectady  drank  nothing  himself  but  Vichy. 
"  Thanks,  no,"  he  said,  when  asked  to  partake  of 
stronger  refreshment;  and  the  laconic  refusal 
seemed  to  convey  an  impressive  hint  that  he 
drank  Vichy  at  this  particular  hour  from  no  in- 
clination so  trivial  as  a  merely  personal  one,  but 
because  the  drinking  of  it  just  now  was  sanc- 
tioned by  lofty  foreign  precedent.  "  I  got  away 
with  a  lot  of  tipple  where  I  dined,"  he  was  good 
enough  to  add ;  and  this  kindly  admission  saved 
me,  in  the  nick  of  time,  from  a  sense  of  unpardon- 
able inebriety. 

But  distance  dissolved  the  aristocratic  spell  he 
had  wrought  over  me.     I  reflected  upon  him ;  I 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN-  WHO  SUCCEEDS.      17 

subjected  him  (if  the  words  do  not  carry  an  inev- 
itable sarcasm)  to  careful  analysis.  It  was,  indeed, 
like  tearing  a  butterfly  to  pieces  —  and  one  whose 
dust  was  gold-dust.  On  what  subjects  had  he 
spoken,  after  all  ?  A  severe  effort  of  recollection, 
during  which  memory  pushed  its  reluctant  probe 
through  a  solid  crust  of  assertive  mannerism, 
assured  me,  that,  outside  of  horses,  dogs,  "hunt-in'," 
"yachtin',''  "rowin',"  "drivin'  a  coaoch,"  and 
"  boxin',''  Mr.  Schenectady  had  touched  upon  no 
appreciable  theme.  His  individuality  was. summed 
up  for  me  in  three  items :  clothes,  deportment,  and 
athletics.  Take  from  him  these  three  cults,  and 
he  would  be  as  much  among  what  we  call  the 
lower  order  of  animal  life  as  were  any  of  his  own 
favorite  brutes.  And  yet,  possessing  these  cults, 
he  was  so  representatively  human  !  Of  intellect, 
in  its  better  grades,  he  gave  not  a  sign.  How  he 
had  ever  managed  to  have  himself  graduated  at 
Oxford  seemed  a  marvel  to  me.  This  conjecture 
also  woke  my  sharp  curiosity.  When  we  next 
met,  which  was  soon,  I  had  grown  invulnerable  to 
his  charms  of  artificial  etiquette  and  punctilio, 
although  I  had  already  heard  his  praises  as  "a 
devilish  fine  fellow,"  and  "a  real  thoroughbred 
gentleman,"  sounded  widely  throughout  the  club. 
But  I  was  not  to  be  blinded  by  popular  adulation. 
I  wanted  to  see  and  judge  and  deduce  for  myself. 
I  had  more  than  once  heard  it  said  of  handsome, 
fashionable  fools,  over-filigreed  with  smart  embel- 
lishments, that  "  they  could  be  clever  enough  when 


18  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

they  chose,'*  or  that  "they  had  plenty  of  brains  if 
they  only  cared  to  use  them,  and  don't  you  make 
any  mistake."  I  had  grown  seriously  doubtful,  of 
late,  as  to  any  men  possessing  brains  and  not 
caring  to  use  them.  I  had  stoutly  made  up  my 
mind  that  all  men  who  possess  brains  are  quite 
sure  to  show  and  to  use  them,  unless  they  are  mad 
enough  to  drug  them  with  drink,  or  luckless  enough 
to  have  them  enfeebled  by  illness. 

I  determined  to  confirm  my  theory  now,  or  to 
see  it  shattered.  The  next  time  that  Schenectady 
and  I  were  seated  together,  I  made  a  polite  conver- 
sational plunge.  "  Did  you  read  hard  while  you 
were  at  Oxford?"  I  asked.  I  had  not  been  a 
member  of  the  Metropolitan  ten  years  for  nothing. 
The  Anglican  current  sets  our  way  with  a  pretty 
steady  flow.  I  had  long  since  learned  that  to 
"read  hard  "  at  an  English  university  is  its  insular 
slang  for  respecting  academic  requirements. 

Schenectady  showed  surprise.  I  had  not  seen 
him  show  any  till  now.  It  was  a  very  felicitous 
and  graceful  quality  of  surprise,  like  everything 
else  about  him.  I  am  not  sure  just  how  he  accom- 
plished it,  whether  with  a  wave  of  his  cigarette,  or 
a  dexterous,  transient  little  flurry  of  his  trim  eye- 
brows. But  it  was  very  nice.  If  I  had  still 
staid  under  his  spell,  I  should  have  felt  a  dumb 
longing  to  have  him  teach  me  how  one  could  get 
to  be  surprised  in  the  same  elegant  way. 

"  Oh,  I  read  rarther  hard  toward  the  larst,"  he 
presently  replied.  "  I  had  an  awfully  good  chap 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS.      19 

for  mee  tewter.  By  Jove  !  what  a  good  chap  he 
was  !  One  o'  the  best  riders  in  the  country." 

"  I  was  n't  aware,"  said  I,  mildly  satirical,  "  that 
good  riding  is  one  of  the  qualifications  for  a 
degree  at  Oxford." 

"  Oh,  bless  my  soul,  no  !  But  Ferguson  —  that 
was  his  name,  Ferguson,  an  awfully  good  chap  — 
was  n't  merely  a  scholar,  you  know." 

"Ah,"  I  murmured,  with  a  sly  emphasis  that 
doubtless  passed  unnoticed,  "not  merely  a  scholar, 
eh?" 

"  Oh,  Lord,  no  !  He  was  a  frightful  sport.  He 
had  n't  a  shillin'  of  his  own,  poor  devil,  and  had 
to  caoach  us  'varsity  men  for  a  livin'." 

"  And  to  pass  your  final  examination,  I  suppose 
you  were  required  to  be  conversant  with  the  most 
difficult  of  the  classic  authors,  —  Tacitus,  Terence, 
Sophocles,  ^Eschylus,  Theocritus,  and  others?  " 

Schenectady  crossed  his  legs.  He  was  in  even- 
ing dress,  and  as  he  made  this  slight  motion  a 
little  shimmer  of  light  went  down  the  broad 
silken  braid  that  overlay  one  seam  of  his  black 
trousers,  meeting  with  a  sort  of  tributary  sympa- 
thy the  luminous  shoe  at  its  limit. 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  he  said.  "  A  feller  's  got  to  be  up 
on  a  lot  o'  stuff  like  that.  I  carii't  think  haow  I 
quite  managed  it,  now  it 's  all  over." 

"Have  you  retained  a  preference  for  any  one 
particular  author?  "  I  relentlessly  inquired. 

He  burst  into  a  laugh,  which  was  very  dulcet 
and  mellow,  and  showed  his  white  teeth  most 
advantageously. 


20  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Oh,  by  Jove  !  they  're  all  the  same  to  me"  he 
jovially  declared.  "1  say,  I  carn't  remember  one 
from  another,  now  I  've  done  with  'em  all." 

"  Really  ?  "  I  interpolated  with  amiable  gravity. 

"Quite  so,  I  asshore  you.  I  slipped  through, 
some  'aough.  I  carn't  think,  now  it's  all  parst, 
just  haow  I  did  it.  I  farncy  it  was  Ferguson's 
extrawdnerry  caoachin'.  We  had  an  American 
chap  in  my  yeah,  however,  who  carst  nearly  all  of 
us  into  the  shade.  He  took  a  double-ferst.  I 
used  to  tell  'im  he  'd  redeemed  the  country,  and 
arsk  him  for  a  bit  of  his  laurels  to  weah  in  mee 
coat.  I  said  it  for  charf,  you  know.  His  name 
was  Pratt ;  he  came  from  somewer  in  the  West  — 
I  think  it  was  Cincinnaati.  He  was  awfully  clever, 
but  a  most  horrid  duffer  —  not  a  gentleman  a  bit, 
don't  you  know  ?  He  used  to  wear  false  cuffs  and 
collars  to  his  sherts,  and  change  'em  of  a  mornin' 
without  changin'  the  shert.  The  other  chaps 
would  charf  'im  abaout  that,  but  I  never  did.  I 
used  to  tell  'em  it  was  none  of  their  business 
whether  he  were  derty  or  no.  But,  on  mee  werd, 
I  never  saw  'irn  derty,  though  he  said  he  read  so 
hard  that  he  could  n't  spare  the  time  for  his  barth 
—  and  a  lot  o'  rubbish  like  that." 

"  If  he  took  a  double-first,"  I  said  (with  perhaps 
a  little  unconscious  fatigue  that  some  of  my 
acquaintances  have  construed  as  irony),  "let  us 
hope  he  is  now  remorsefully  bathing  three  or  four 
times  a  day." 

From  that  evening  I  gave  up  Schenectady  in 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS.       21 

despair.  I  satisfied  myself  that  all  the  historic 
loveliness  of  Oxford  had  fallen  as  flat  upon  him  as 
the  night  dews  of  Parnassus  might  fall  upon  a 
browsing  goat.  After  this  I  got  to  asking  myself 
how  the  girls  of  New  York  society  would  receive 
him.  Would  lie  be  able  to  hold  his  own  among 
those  five  or  eight  elect  belles  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  lifting  their  pretty  noses  disdainfully  at 
every  male  admirer  except  a  scant  and  superfine 
twenty?  Would  he  "take,"  as  the  phrase  goes? 
There  have  been  cases  where  millionnaires  did  not 
take.  I  ran  over  in  my  mind  such  cases,  and  found 
that  I  could  remember  only  five.  One  stuttered 
agonizingly,  another  lisped  abnormally,  a  third  was 
semi-idiotic,  a  fourth  suffered  from  partial  blind- 
ness, and  a  fifth  limped  with  hereditary  chronic 
gout.  Schenectady,  I  concluded,  after  mature 
reflection,  would  stand  a  chance  of  at  least  fair 
social  success. 

But  I  soon  found  myself  keenly  in  error.  Sche- 
nectady began  his  career  of  fashion  at  a  small 
german,  given  by  his  august  reigning  aunt,  Mrs. 
Poughkeepsie.  He  had  not  been  in  the  rooms 
more  than  half  an  hour  before  I  saw  him  visibly 
beamed  upon  by  the  one  supreme  belle  of  the 
season.  After  this  he  did  not  merely  succeed; 
he  was  literally  overwhelmed  with  admiration. 
Femininity  laid  its  choicest  tributes  at  his  shining 
feet.  He  was  thought  faultless,  exquisite,  delight- 
ful, superb.  He  never  dined  at  the  Metropolitan ; 
invitations  to  dine  elsewhere  were  showered  upon 


22  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

him.  He  rarely  had  occasion  to  do  more  tnan 
exchange  a  civil  word  or  two  with  a  wall-flower:  the 
splendid  exotics,  the  Marechal  Niels  and  Jacque- 
minots of  enchanting  maidenhood,  were  bnt  too 
happy  to  bend  toward  him  the  full  favor  of  their 
exceptional  and  brilliant  bloom.  He  had  come,  he 
was  seen,  and  he  had  conquered.  I  should  also 
add  that  he  was  heard  before  conquering.  I  often 
marvelled  how  he  could  have  been  heard  to  any 
conceivable  advantage.  But,  marvel  as  I  would, 
his  victory  was  in  every  sense  a  certainty. 

It  was  a  victory  that  set  me  thinking.  I  had 
conclusively  proven  to  myself  that,  apart  from  his 
happy,  graceful  air,  this  young  gentleman  was  a 
mental  vacancy.  He  expressed  nothing,  he  repre- 
sented nothing,  he  imparted  nothing,  he  decided 
nothing.  All  that  sways  and  impels  our  great 
century  was  a  sealed  book  and  a  dead  letter  to  his 
drowsy,  flaccid,  viscous  intelligence.  He  had  been 
in  near  contact  with  great  minds,  and  had  brought 
away  not  even  a  glimmering  reflection  of  their 
greatness.  "  How  scorching,"  I  mused,  "  is  the 
comment  his  income  of  flattery  makes  upon  the 
tone  and  quality  of  that  social  body  which  so  bows 
before  him !  If  he  is  the  man  who  succeeds  in 
New  York  society,  how  worthless  are  the  equip- 
ments required  for  success !  In  Europe  this  tri- 
umph of  manner  over  matter,  this  petty  surrender 
of  sense  to  superficiality,  this  worship  of  natal 
accident  and  physical  daintiness  in  the  place  of 
solid  merit  and  mental  superiority,  might  be  well 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SUCCEEDS.      23 

enough.  They  have  cringed  so  long,  over  there, 
to  mindless  despotism  and  titled  incompetence, 
that  all  the  follies  they  commit  are  clothed  with  a 
sort  of  indulgent  romanticism,  like  the  ivy  on  their 
feudal  prisons  and  the  gloom  about  their  great 
ecclesiastical  paintings.  But  I  don't  think  that 
the  brave  little  "  Mayflower  "  steered  its  pale,  half- 
starved  inmates  through  bleak  storm  of  angry  seas 
to  help  them  found  an  ancestry  for  such  idle  dal- 
liers  as  Verplanck  Schenectady.  I  think  we  meant 
more  than  this  when  we  bled  at  Lexington.  I 
believe  we  meant  more  when  we  held  our  own  at 
Yorktown.  But,  after  all,  we  Americans  have 
grown  old  enough  to  have  learned  about  the  in- 
gratitude of  republics.  Perhaps  Schenectady  — 
the  man  who  succeeds  —  is  one  of  its  living  incar- 
nations. 


24  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


III. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT. 

WHENEVER  I  think  of  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith, 
I  am  always  reminded  of  Mohammed's  coffin,  with 
its  legendary  suspension  between  heaven  and  earth. 
And  my  reason  for  such  reminder  is  by  no  means 
a  recondite  or  a  subtle  one.  Mrs.  Abercrombie 
Smith  (it  has  never  occurred  within  the  recollec- 
tion of  any  friend  or  acquaintance  of  this  lady  to 
have  heard  her  called  the  plain  "  Smith  "  without 
the  ornamenting  and  qualifying  "Abercrombie") 
has  incessantly  refused  to  be  socially  defined. 
I  don't  assert  that  she  has  consciously  opposed  such 
definition.  It  is  my  belief  that  she  has  allowed 
herself  to  drift  securely  along  on  the  current  of  her 
own  complex  personality. 

I  call  it  a  complex  personality,  because  she  is  a 
matron  of  no  single  discernible  aim.  With  other 
women  of  her  distinct  place  and  rank,  you  can  tell 
just  what  they  desire  to  accomplish.  They  are 
somebody,  and  they  propose  to  remain  somebody. 
Empowered  with  precious  prerogative,  they  retain 
this  through  an  unflinching  determination.  You 
cannot  woo  or  wheedle  them  into  an  imprudent 
concession.  Their  drawing-room  is  their  castle, 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT.  25 

and  to  storm  their  castle  is  to  receive  a  prompt 
broadside  of  imposing  rebuke.  They  have  their 
unpurchasable  smiles,  their  incorruptible  clemen- 
cies. Whom  they  will  to  receive,  they  receive ;  and, 
if  by  strategy  you  enforce  from  them  reluctant 
hospitalities,  they  know  how  to  revenge  themselves 
by  a  future  disfavor  as  polite  as  it  is  relentless. 

But  with  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith  I  found  this 
order  of  affairs  most  amusingly  reversed.  She 
was  about  five  and  forty  when  I  first  met  her, 
and  handsome  with  that  mature  beauty  which  an 
unaggressive  embonpoint,  a  pair  of  unfaded  hazel 
eyes,  two  positively  time-defying  dimples  and  a 
complexion  of  soft  memorial  bloom,  will  make  any 
woman  of  her  admitted  years.  There  was  no 
question  about  her  right  to  rule  and  reign.  She 
was  a  Smith,  but  a  special,  particular,  and  even 
phenomenal  Smith.  Multitudes  of  other  Smiths 
had  obscurely  lived  and  died.  But  her  late  hus- 
band, who  had  also  lived  and  died,  had  been  the 
near  relative  of  untold  Knickerbocker  grandees. 
I  never  saw  him ;  he  was  dead  before  my  time,  so 
to  speak.  Nor  have  I  ever  known  just  why  he  was 
so  remarkable  and  exceptional  a  Smith;  but  I 
assure  the  incredulous  reader  of  these  confessions 
that  there  is  not  a  grain  of  doubt  regarding  his 
flawless  origin.  I  cannot  record  who  Mrs.  Aber- 
crombie Smith  had  herself  been.  Derogatory 
whispers  may  once  have  sounded,  but  these  had 
long  ago  drowsed  into  respectful  silence.  The 
overshadowing  power  of  her  matrimonial  name 


26  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

may  have  covered  any  sort  of  hereditary  origin. 
It  is  my  private  opinion  that  Mrs.  Abercrombie 
Smith  sprang  from  a  very  unknown  stock.  I  like 
to  take  this  view,  since  it  accounts  for  and  justifies 
the  sinewy  republicanism  in  her  which  I  am  on  the 
verge  of  chronicling. 

She  went  everywhere.  Nobody  ever  presumed 
to  question  her  right  to  go  everywhere.  Here  lay 
the  pregnant  and  bitter  source  of  her  continuous 
quarrel  with  society.  It  was  a  silent  and  furtive 
quarrel,  but  it  was  none  the  less  a  pronounced  one. 
She  ought  to  have  been  very  popular,  and  she 
could  certainly  have  made  herself  so,  with  a  little 
circumspect  effort,  among  the  magnates  who  now 
wholly  mistrusted  and  dreaded  her.  I  soon  got  to 
know  at  least  ten  feminine  leaders  who  would  with 
joy  have  erased  her  name  from  their  visiting  books. 
But  this  was  not  possible.  She  was  too  important 
an  aversion.  Everybody  would  instantly  have 
understood  why  they  had  dropped  her.  Such  a 
proceeding  would  have  raised  a  hue  and  cry  from 
which  the  boldest  legitimist  in  our  dear  democratic 
city  modestly  shrank.  It  would  have  been  to  dis- 
locate a  pillar  of  society ;  the  whole  classic  edifice 
would  have  quivered  from  the  shock.  She  must 
be  endured,  therefore,  and  courteously  detested. 

She  represented  a  perpetual  irreparable  breach 
in  the  walls  of  aristocracy.  She  was  a  foe  in  the 
camp  of  the  select.  If  she  had  worked  her  treasons 
insidiously,  from  without,  she  might  have  been  met 
by  a  wrathful  phalanx  of  opponents.  But  she 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT.  27 

worked  them  openly,  from  within.  She  was  inces- 
santly bidding  the  enemy  enter,  with  a  cool  cour- 
age that  exasperated  while  it  nonplussed  her  nat- 
ural allies.  She  never  proclaimed  herself  either 
forgetful  or  scornful  of  what  is  meant  by  caste. 
She  simply  assumed  toward  the  whole  matter  a 
kind  of  rebellious  innocence,  blent  with  a  good 
deal  of  sweet  yet  secure  dignity.  If  you  put  to 
her  an  adroit  question  or  two  on  the  subject  of  her 
"position,"  she  would  respond  with  the  nonchalant 
serenity  of  a  queen  explaining  some  nice  point  of 
usage  to  an  interrogative  courtier. 

"  She  has  always  got  some  nobody  in  tow,"  said 
a  man  of  the  gilded  cliques  to  me,  when  I  first 
asked  for  a  direct  definition  of  her  unconvention- 
alism.  "It  is  quite  as  often  a  man  as  a  woman. 
She  gets  people  from  the  highways  and  hedges,  and 
drags  them  into  decent  places.  She  is  forever 
making  society  swallow  somebody  whom  it  does  n't 
want  to  swallow.  I  don't  wonder  that  she  tires 
its  abused  larynx.  Some  day  it  ought  to  revolt 
against  another  plebeian  morsel.  Some  day  I  sup- 
pose it  will,  and,  for  my  part,  I  earnestly  hope  so." 

A  little  later,  one  of  my  aunts  —  a  certain  Mrs. 
Rensselaer  Rivington  —  said  to  me,  with  a  gentle 
wail  in  her  usually  decorous  tones,  "My  dear 
Mark,  I  do  think  that  something  should  be  done 
to  stop  that  dreadful  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith." 

"  To  stop  her,  aunt  ?  "  I  inquired  iteratively. 

"  Yes.  You  know  I  am  going  to  give  my  Ger- 
trude a  Blue  Room  next  Monday."  (This  was  in 


28  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

the  days  of  the  old  Fourteenth  Street  Delmonico's, 
when  a  "  Blue  Room  "  at  that  charming  edifice  of 
festivity  meant  a  small  evening  entertainment 
whence  all  the  social  strugglers  were  proscribed.) 
"  Of  course  I  wanted  it  to  be  nice.  But  here  is 
Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith,  who  writes  me,  request- 
ing invitations  for  her  'two  dear,  intimate  }roung 
friends,  Miss  Nutt  and  Mr.  Blumenthal.'  There 
are  certainly  two  hundred  people,  of  the  sort  that 
one  knows  and  visits,  whom  I  would  much  rather 
have  than  either  Miss  Nutt  or  Mr.  Blumenthal  — 
whoever  they  maybe,  with  their  outrageous  names. 
But  my  affair  was  to  be  a  small  one,  and  Mrs. 
Abercrombie  Smith  was  fully  aware  of  it.  Yet  she 
forces  me  to  receive  two  strangers.  It  is  simply 
abominable !  Still,  I  might  have  been  prepared 
for  her.  She  has  done  this  horrid  kind  of  thing 
for  years." 

I  followed  up  my  aunt's  grievance,  so  to  speak, 
and  observed  the  lady  and  gentleman  whom  Mrs. 
Abercrombie  Smith  had  thrust  upon  her  unwilling 
civilities.  The  first  was  a  pale  girl  with  a  rectilinear 
band  of  flaxen  hair  across  either  temple,  and  a 
notably  demoralized  way  of  carrying  her  fan.  She 
looked  as  if  she  might  have  come  yesterday  from 
Topeka.  Her  large,  mild  blue  eyes  stared  upon 
her  brilliant  surroundings  as  though  she  were  at 
some  kind  of  gaudy  provincial  fair,  and  every  guest 
were  a  decorated  booth  of  special  equipment.  I 
had  a  sensation,  quite  disconnected  with  irony,  of 
asking  her  whether  she  would  permit  me  to  procure 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT.  29 

her  a  tumbler  of  lemonade.  Her  loose,  wide  smile 
had  so  saccharine  a  suggestion,  that  I  am  sure  I 
should  have  ordered  the  lemonade  to  be  nice  and 
sweet.  As  for  Mr.  Blumenthal,  he  had  a  keen, 
smooth-shorn  face,  whose  small  features,  all  strik- 
ingly close  together,  gave  the  appearance  of  their 
having  fled  from  some  sort  of  affright  occasioned 
by  his  large,  expansive  ears ;  it  looked,  indeed,  as 
if  his  ears  were  something  which  had  carried  a 
threat,  like  the  inclosing  vans  of  a  carnivorous  bird, 
and  thus  caused  a  huddling  together  of  brows, 
nose,  mouth,  and  even  forehead  as  well.  To  narrate 
more  briefly,  both  of  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith's 
companions  had  the  air  of  not  being  either  native 
or  educated  to  their  present  surroundings.  But 
their  suave  patron  apparently  failed  to  perceive  this. 
She  introduced  them,  as  it  were,  broadcast.  She  in- 
sisted upon  their  recognition,  for  the  time  at  least. 

They  were  short-lived  favorites.  I  soon  after- 
ward met  her  with  a  professorial  person  whose 
riotous  amber  beard  incited  the  most  uncharitable 
thoughts  regarding  his  evening  toilet,  and  whose 
green  glasses  made  two  specks  of  dense  shadow  on 
all  the  airy,  light-tinted  gayety  which  prevailed. 
The  new  protege  was  a  person  of  scholarly  distinc- 
tion. All  her  comrades,  of  whatever  sex,  were 
usually  distinguished.  They  were  always  from 
"somewhere,"  and  had  either  done  something 
extraordinary  themselves  or  boasted  connection 
with  friends  or  ancestors  who  had  a  formidable 
claim  upon  peculiar  heed. 


80  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

But  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith  had  another  glaring 
fault.  She  did  not  merely  insist  upon  your  recep- 
tion of  her  variant  constituency  of  followers.  She 
wanted  you  to  meet  within  her  own  drawing- 
rooms  whomsoever  she  might  chance  to  invite 
there.  "It  is  a  perfect  rabble,"  declared  Caroline 
Ten  Eyck  to  me,  while  we  stood  together  in  a 
throng  assembled  by  this  unparalleled  hostess. 
"  All  sorts  of  people  are  here.  There  is  danger  of 
meeting  your  tailor  or  your  dressmaker." 

I  could  not  help  somewhat  satirically  answering 
that  this  might  be  the  reason  for  some  well-known 
masculine  and  feminine  faces  being  absent. 

"  Oh,  that 's  just  like  you ! "  exclaimed  Caroline, 
who  has  always  accused  me  of  cynicism,  and  who 
is  some  sort  of  a  cousin  of  mine,  and  therefore 
privileged  to  break  an  occasional  lance  upon  my 
defensive  cuirass.  "  But  you  know  perfectly  what 
I  mean,  Mark.  A  few  minutes  ago  I  saw  a  man 
with  a  lavender  satin  cravat." 

"  Is  there  any  dark  crime  in  wearing  a  lavender 
satin  cravat  of  an  evening?"  I  replied. 

Caroline  tossed  her  comely  auburn  head,  which 
has  such  a  curly  grace  just  where  the  peachy  tint 
of  her  temple  meets  the  dry,  crisp  tresses  them- 
selves. 

"  O  Mark ! "  she  cried  irritably,  "  I  did  n't  say 
it  was  a  dark  crime  !  Call  it  whatever  color  you 
please." 

"I  '11  call  it  a  lavender  crime,  then,"  I  returned 
flippantly. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT,  31 

Caroline  is  clever.  She  looked  at  me  with  her 
lips  prettily  pursed,  for  an  instant,  and  then  said, 
slightly  misquoting  Tennyson : 

"  I  object  to  the  person's  cravat,  all  the  same. 
'There  was  that  across  his  throat  which  one 
would  hardly  care  to  see.' ' 

I  laughed,  enjoying  the  bright  nonsense,  and 
encouraged  her  in  her  random  misquotation. 

"Come,  now,  my  sweet  Lady  Clara  Vere  de 
Vere,"  I  said,  "let  me  tell  you  that  you  put 
strange  fancies  in  my  head." 

Caroline  eyed  me  quizzically.  "Don't  ask  me 
to  teach  the  orphan  boy  to  read,  or  the  orphan  girl 
to  sew,  Mark,"  she  exclaimed,  "for  I  do  both.  I 
belong  to  a  mission  school,  which  includes  "  — 

"  Refrain  from  vaunting  your  public  charities," 
I  interrupted,  "and  give  our  hostess,  Mrs.  Aber- 
crombie  Smith,  a  little  more  private  charity.  She 
is,  in  her  way,  a  reformer,  Caroline,  quite  as  much 
and  —  pardon  me  if  I  presume  to  say  it  —  con- 
siderably more  than  you  are." 

My  cousin  gave  a  haughty  smile.  "  I  can't  see 
a  trace  of  reformation,"  she  exclaimed,  "  in  ridicu- 
lously mixing  sets." 

"  Of  course  you  can't  see  it.     I  wish  you  could." 

"  How  nice  of  you  to  pity  me ! "  softly  cried 
Caroline,  who  had  her  hot  funds  of  spite.  "Every- 
body knows,  Mark,  that  you  are  getting  to  be  a  — 
what  is  the  new  word?  —  crank.  You  are  said 
to  read  Herbert  Spencer  and  Duxley  and  Harwin, 
and  all  those  awful  atheists,  on  the  sly.  You  are 


32  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

said  to  be  " —  Here  my  lovable,  winsome  little 
cousin  paused,  and  gave  me  a  glance  that  was 
meant  to  be  pensively  reproachful.  "  You  are 
said  to  be  —  oh,  yes,  Mark  !  you  are  said  to  be  an 
actual  out-and-out  Free-thinker!  " 

Under  this  anathema  maranatha,  I  should  per- 
haps have  had  the  civility  to  succumb ;  but  I  did 
not,  and  went  on  talking  with  Caroline  in  a  way 
that  no  doubt  shocked  her  vastly,  and  was  in 
dread  disaccord  with  the  merry  waltz  music  not 
far  distant. 

Yet  of  course  my  cousin  was  right,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  modern  New  York  society,  in  what  we 
call  its  upper  realms.  Thus  judged,  Mrs.  Abercrom- 
bie  Smith  did  have  a  rabble  there  that  evening. 

But  I  don't  think  that  because  a  good  many  of 
the  unfamiliar  figures  of  the  men  could  n't  ride  a 
steeple-chase  at  Jerome  Park  in  the  garb  of 
jockeys  and  be  rapturously  applauded  for  doing 
so  they  were  necessarily  deserving  of  this  truly 
brutal  substantive.  Nor  do  I  think  that  because 
not  a  few  of  the  ladies  were  dressed  with  vague 
regard  for  the  sovereign  mode  of  the  hour  they 
were  for  this  reason  contemptible.  But  I  did  not 
tell  Caroline  Ten  Eyck  so.  I  find  there  is  no 
earthly  use  of  telling  any  one  so  who  is  clutched 
by  the  mordant  preference  as  to  "  who  is  who  " 
and  "what  is  what." 

I  afterward  felt  a  solid,  wholesome  respect  for 
Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith.  I  could  not  help 
paying  her  this  allegiance.  There  was  something 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  ARISTOCRAT.  33 

almost  epical  in  the  way  she  ignored  the  disap- 
proving groans  of  those  who  constantly  surrounded 
her.  All  the  great  poets  have  won  their  renown, 
posthumous  as  it  has  usually  been,  from  daring 
popular  disesteem.  Mrs.  Abercrombie  Smith  was 
not  a  great  poet;  I  am  convinced  that  a  large 
share  of  mundane  prose  entered  into  her  well- 
governed  and  cordial  disposition.  Bat  she  was, 
nevertheless,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
a  perceptible  and  uncorrupted  reformer. 

Nothing  could  make  her  swerve.  She  continued 
her  career  as  a  democratic  aristocrat  with  unalter- 
ing  consistency.  She  directed  the  bright,  firm  ray 
of  her  genial  smile  well  over  the  reach  of  her 
detractors,  but  she  somehow  managed  to  turn  it, 
with  a  glowing  condescension,  down  into  the  eyes 
of  all  her  friends. 

She  remains  supreme  until  the  present  day.  She 
is  the  visible  lament  of  the  exclusionists.  As  I 
wrote  before,  she  pushes  from  within,  and  not  from 
without.  But  she  is  comfortably  and  ineradicably 
within.  She  is  like  the  presidential  levee  at  Wash- 
ington :  you  may  dislike  her,  but  you  can't  abolish 
her. 

It  seems  to  me  that  she  is  by  no  means  the  neces- 
sary evil  which  I  hear  her  so  frequently  called.  I 
should  name  her,  on  the  contrary,  an  accidental 
but  cogent  good.  She  might  have  been  an  uncom- 
promising and  feudal  snob.  She  remains,  and  will 
remain,  a  generous-handed  dispenser  of  social  pass- 
ports. 


84  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Long  may  she  viser  them  with  the  sunny  and 
careless  indulgence ! 

If  she  were  outside  of  the  small,  restricted  world 
in  which  her  intrinsic  gifts  of  dominance  yet  keep 
her  a  power,  —  if  she  were,  in  fact,  a  political  head 
or  a  stanch  pioneer  in  any  great  question  of 
popular  zeal  and  heat,—  I  should  fling  off  my  cap 
to  her  (though  it  is  n't  a  cap,  but  only  a  glossy, 
modern-shaped  cylinder  of  a  "  stove-pipe  ")  and 
cry  with  stout  ardor,  like  any  of  the  historic  rebels 
we  read  about,  "Long  live  Mrs.  Abercrombie 
Smith,  the  democratic  aristocrat ! " 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.        85 


IV. 

THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES. 

I  SOON  found  that  New  York  society  represents 
continuous  change.  It  is  like  that  development 
from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous  of 
which  we  are  so  ably  told  in  Spencerian  philoso- 
phy. Certain  portions  are  in  an  incessant  state  of 
disintegration,  it  is  true,  wrought  by  all  kinds  of 
circumstantial  causes,  from  a  departure  abroad 
to  a  financial  felony,  from  a  commercial  disaster 
to  the  great  levelling  ill  of  death  itself.  But  these 
adverse  forces,  affecting  the  whole  system  destruc- 
tively, only  confirm  the  justice  of  my  evolutional 
parallel.  As  fast  as  fashion  dies,  so  fast  is  it  born 
again.  As  fast  as  it  fades,  so  fast  does  it  bud. 
Newly-gotten  wealth  and  newly-acquired  ambi- 
tion feed  it  with  an  unfailing  current.  It  always 
has  its  people  who  are  "  beginning  to  get  about."  It 
does  not  know  the  solid  debt  which  it  owes  to  this 
auxiliary  power.  But  I  suppose  its  perennial 
ingratitude  is  only  a  part  of  the  entire  wise  and 
beautiful  plan.  As  individuals,  we  rarely  cast  a 
thought  upon  the  wholesome  fuel  of  air  which  we 
breathe  into  our  lungs,  —  how  many  times  out  of 
every  twenty-four  hours,  I  am  not  physiologist 


36  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

enough  to  record.  And  no  doubt  aristocracy 
would  be  darkly  shocked  if  it  were  once  called 
upon  to  realize  its  truly  vital  kinship  with  plebeian- 
ism.  Perhaps  its  dainty  nerves  merit  better  treat- 
ment than  even  a  vague  allusion  to  this  frigid  fact. 
There  is  something  so  actually  grisly,  for  the  loyal 
scion  of  caste,  in  being  reminded  that  such  loud, 
rude  thoroughfares  as  the  Bowery  and  Third  Ave- 
nue and  Avenue  A  contain  not  a  few  living  ances- 
tors of  exquisite  future  ball-givers  and  ball-goers  h 
I  confess  that  the  contemplation  of  so  austere  a 
truth  must  be  horrifying  to  any  well-ordered  pa- 
trician mind.  And  yet  I,  who  like  to  face  all 
social  truths',  cannot  help  feeling  it  extremely 
probable  that  my  grandchildren  may  one  day  in- 
termarry (and  perhaps  somewhat  triumphantly  at 
that)  with  the  grandchildren  of  the  man  who 
shovels  snow  from  my  smart  doorstep  in  winter 
for  fifty  cents,  or  of  the  shabbier  fellow-citizen 
who  dumps  my  auroral  ashes  into  his  cart  for  no 
wage  whatever. 

When  Mr.  Lysander  Dingley  first  swam  into  my 
ken,  I  recollect  wondering  whether  his  energetic 
fins  were  not  of  a  most  humble  inherited  fibre. 
But  I  afterward  discovered  that  this  young  gen- 
tleman had  followed  a  more  gradual  impulse  of 
progress,  and  that,  instead  of  springing  directly 
from  "  the  people,"  he  had  been  saved  the  calam- 
ity of  this  direct  contact  by  having  had  a  single 
generation  kindly  intervene. 

The  senior  Dingley  had  made  a  neat  fortune  as 


THE   YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.        37 

a  retail  furrier,  and  was  quite  destitute  of  proud 
aspirations.  I  never  saw  him,  but  I  can  picture 
him  as  philosophically  settling  doAvn  among  the 
soft  accommodations  of  his  mink-skins,  ermines 
and  sables,  to  ignore  those  rigorous  exposures 
which,  for  a  man  who  would  scale,  late  in  life,  the 
bleak  ramparts  of  aristocracy,  are  sometimes  little 
less  than  arctic.  But  his  son,  Lysander,  had  no 
such  placid  wisdom.  Lysander  had  been  festally 
inclined  from  the  age  of  one  and  twenty.  The 
facts  which  I  am  about  to  narrate  concerning  his 

O 

career  were  secured  some  time  after  my  first 
acquaintance  with  him ;  but  as  a  faithful  biog- 
rapher, who  would  nothing  extenuate  nor  set  down 
aught  in  malice,  I  shall  give  them  their  early  and 
due  place  in  his  written  history. 

Like  so  many  of  our  New  York  youths,  Lysan- 
der had  entered  Columbia  College  at  the  absurdly 
immature  age  of  sixteen.  He  was  quick  and 
clever  at  his  studies,  and  rapidly  took  a  high  place 
in  his  class.  He  was  very  ambitious,  too,  of  all 
sorts  of  distinction.  There  were  some  sorts  of 
distinction  regarding  which  he  had  only  the  most 
indefinite  views.  At  the  same  time  he  had  the 
generally  definite  view  that  he  wished  to  excel 
wherever  excellence  was  possible.  Early  in  his 
freshman  year,  Lysander  made  a  distressing  dis- 
covery. He  had  joined  the  wrong  secret  societ}r. 
In  Columbia  this  has  a  most  piercing  significance. 
At  his  especial  period  there  were  two  dominant 
and  co-regent  secret  societies  in  the  college,  whose 


38  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

members  were  mostly  chosen  for  claims  of  lofty 
and  influential  parentage.  The  young  men  be- 
longing to  these  two  organizations  (whose  private 
deeds  or  misdeeds  were  wrapped  in  severe  dark- 
ness) wore  little  gold  enamelled  pins  on  the  lappets 
of  their  waistcoats,  bearing  two  or  three  Greek 
letters  of  most  ennobling  importance.  Members 
of  the  other,  less-honored  bands  wore  little  pins  as 
well ;  but  between  their  sacred  insignia  and  those 
of  the  truly  elect  dwelt  chasms  of  difference.  It 
was  like  comparing  the  Garter  and  the  Golden 
Fleece  with  certain  obscure  European  orders. 
Lysander  Dingley  soon  felt  that  he  was  emphati- 
cally one  of  those  who  had  neither  been  called  nor 
chosen.  But  it  was  too  late  for  rebellion  or  resti- 
tution. He  had  taken  his  weird  vows  of  eternal 
allegiance  to  the  Sigma  Omega,  and  a  Sigma 
Omega  he  must  remain  till  Doom's  Day  —  or  at 
least  Commencement  Day  —  and  even  after.  He 
rapidly  perceived  that  he  had  but  one  consolatory 
course  left.  He  must  be  stoutly  loyal  to  the 
Sigma  Omegas,  and  yet  seek  outside  affiliation,  and 
intimacy  with  the  sleek,  dapper,  dandified  young 
Omicron  Psis  and  Beta  Alphas.  But  in  this  nice 
scheme  he  utterly  failed.  He  gradually  recog- 
nized the  bitter  and  galling  fact  of  his  stigmatized 
position.  Harry  Van  Corlear  and  Johnny  Wee- 
hawken  were  not  to  be  propitiated.  He  mur- 
mured to  them  in  the  class-room  the  required 
second-aorist  which  saved  them  from  recitational 
disgrace ;  he  whispered  to  them  with  adroit  benevo- 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.        39 

lence,  while  standing  at  a  contiguous  blackboard, 
the  magic  "  open  sesame "  to  some  stubborn 
enigma  in  Legendre.  But  his  good  offices  were  of 
no  avail.  Harry  and  Johnny  always  accepted 
such  favors  with  easy  suavity.  They  scarcely 
ever  had  time  to  study;  they  were  immensely 
fashionable,  in  their  beardless,  adolescent  way ; 
they  had  repeatedly  been  to  some  "  affair "  the 
night  before,  and  would  sometimes  drop  into  the 
college  grounds  with  a  rather  stale  and  limp-look- 
ing rosebud  for  a  boutonniere,  as  if  they  had 
selected  it  from  a  number  of  others  procured  in 
the  german  recently  danced.  They  thought  Ly- 
sander  wholly  interested  in  his  courtesies,  which 
he  indeed  was,  and  so  chose  to  value  them  accord- 
ingly. Harry  was  an  Omicron  Psi,  and  Johnny 
was  a  Beta  Alpha,  and  they  were  both  unconscion- 
able young  snobs,  after  that  remorseless  and  rea- 
sonless manner  in  which  only  very  young  persons, 
of  whatever  sex,  dare  to  be  snobs. 

Lysander  Dingley  used  to  find  himself  wishing 
that  he  had  been  where  those  wilted  rosebuds  had 
been  the  night  before,  and  wishing  it  with  a  force 
that  gradually  took  an  almost  monomaniacal  form. 
Most  metropolitan  colleges  are  of  slight  academic 
worth.  They  are  colleges  which  are  in  reality 
mere  high  schools,  as  often  has  been  said.  The 
esprit  de  corps  among  their  disciples  is  a  shadow, 
and  the  professorial  influence,  discipline,  super- 
vision, becomes  of  necessity  a  nominal  form. 
Lysander  might  have  left  Dartmouth  or  Rutgers  a 


40  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

sensible  fellow.  He  was  graduated  from  Columbia 
a  pushing,  striving,  selfish  time-server,  bitten  by 
the  feverish  desire  to  do  nothing  better  in  the 
world  than  get  himself  "  asked  out."  He  stood  as 
a  conspicuous  and  lamentable  type.  I  feel  sure 
that  his  kind  are  being  graduated  every  year  just 
as  he  was,  and  preparing  for  an  ignoble  struggle 
with  useless  assailants,  just  as  he  did.  Pie  means 
one  of  our  many  astonishing  republican  evils.  Of 
course  he  is  not  to  be  blamed.  He  is  not  a  cause : 
he  is  an  effect.  You  may  tell  me,  if  you  please, 
that  you  have  found  him  in  Europe.  To  this  I 
will  only  answer,  that  if  he  is  found  there  after 
six  or  seven  centuries,  all  the  more  reason  why  he 
should  not  be  found  here  after  one  century. 

His  first  efforts  were  pitiable.  I  used  to  wit- 
ness some  of  them :  so  I  can  now  continue  this 
precious  memoir  with  renewed  confidence.  It  had 
transpired  that  he  was  the  son  of  "Dingley  the 
Fur-Man."  Everybody  knew  or  had  known 
"Dingley  the  Fur-Man."  He  had  warmed  more 
of  our  New  York  dowagers  in  their  sleighs  and 
coaches  than  it  would  be  easy  to  tell.  This  was 
doubtless  only  an  added  reason  why  they  should 
receive  his  son  coldly.  And  they  certainly  did  so. 

But  Lysander  persevered.  I  saw  and  closely 
watched  him  while  he  was  persevering.  At  this 
time  he  had  a  tall  and  rather  well-made  figure,  a 
supple  and  decisive  way  of  moAdng  about  a  room, 
and  an  apparel  of  distinct  elegance.  But  his  face 
was  plainly  against  him.  It  has  been  left  last  in 


THE  YOUNG-  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.        41 

my  description,  and  deserves  to  be.  It  was  rug- 
gedly irregular  of  feature,  and  its  nose  had  an 
abnormal  aquiline  curve.  Its  lack  of  beauty 
was  indeed  a  presence  of  ugliness.  It  was  a  sharp 
and  incisive  impediment  against  success.  "How 
homely  he  is ! "  became  a  current  comment  as 
soon  as  he  had  compelled  people  to  admit  that  he 
was  at  all.  But  his  genial  and  full  smile,  dis- 
closing unflawed  teeth,  was  by  no  means  against 
him ;  it  was  indeed  with  him,  and  he  smiled  very 
often. 

I  used  to  wonder  how  he  could  smile  so  amply, 
considering  his  constant  rebuffs.  "I  will  not 
know  him,"  said  Rose  Rivington  to  me  one  even- 
ing, with  her  facile  curl  of  as  pretty  a  lip  as  ever 
nature  gave  to  any  girl  yet  on  the  verge  of  her 
twenty-third  birthday.  "  I  think  a  line  should  be 
drawn  somewhere,  and  I  propose  to  draw  it  just 
there." 

But  Rose  was  asked  to  know  him  before  that 
evening  was  over,  and  murmured  an  unwilling 
consent.  He  had  got  somebody  to  present  him. 
He  was  always  getting  somebody  to  present  him. 
I  was  standing  not  far  away  from  Rose,  and  wit- 
nessed the  introduction.  He  asked  her  to  dance 
—  and,  by  the  way,  he  danced  extremely  well. 
Rose  refused.  I  caught  the  words  uso  tired  "  from 
her  languid  lips,  and  that  was  all.  About  ten 
minutes  later  I  saw  her  dancing  with  that  caddish 
little  Englishman,  Tom  Steeplechaser,  whose  only 
possible  matrimonial  remeignement  was  that  he 


42  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

could  introduce  any  rich  American  girl  who 
might  many  him  to  a  Scotch  third-cousin,  Lord 
Willothewisp.  But  still  later,  during  the  progress 
of  the  german  (which,  by  the  way,  our  hostess 
kindly  asked  me  to  lead  myself),  I  saw  Lysander 
Dingley  approach  the  haughty  Rose  and  "take 
her  out"  with  a  splendid  amiability.  Lysander 
danced  himself,  that  evening,  with  Lucy  Ilacken- 
sack,  —  a  young  girl  of  supernatural  height  and 
proverbial  stupidity.  Poor  Miss  Lucy  was  a  wall- 
flower of  six  acknowledged  seasons,  and  had  gone 
home  partnerless  from  more  balls  than  it  would  be 
decorous  or  even  gallant  for  me  now  to  chronicle, 
especially  if  I  had  kept  count  of  their  mortifying 
number. 

The  season  ended.  Lent  laid  its  lulling  shadow 
upon  all  festivity.  Lysander  Dingley  had  aspired, 
and  had  not  succeeded.  We  all  knew  this.  And 
yet  we  all  conceded  the  fact  that  somehow  —  it 
was  useless  to  unravel  the  complicated  problem  of 
"  how  "  —  Lysander  had  managed  to  make  his  face 
and  figure  and  name  a  fact,  if  not  a  factor,  in  po- 
lite select  assemblages. 

During  the  ensuing  summer,  his  father  died.  It 
afterward  fell  to  my  knowledge  that  "  Dingley  the 
Fur-Man  "  had  been  very  parsimonious  with  his 
son  as  regarded  all  personal  expenditures.  But  at 
last  the  old  gentleman  was  as  dead  as  one  of  his 
own  minks  or  otters.  Lysander,  long  motherless, 
was  left  the  whole  bulk  of  the  fortune.  I  realized 
something  which  had  not  previously  dawned  upon 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.       43 

me.  Lysander,  though  eager  enough  to  thrust 
himself  among  the  holy  of  holies,  had  never,  to  my 
knowledge,  laid  more  than  a  very  occasional 
bunch  of  Cornelia  Cook  or  Crloire  de  Paris  roses 
at  the  feet  of  any  lady  — no,  not  even  at  those  of 
the  ostracized  Lucy  Hackensack.  But  now  —  in 
perhaps  the  last  week  of  Lent  —  who  but  Rose 
Rivington  herself  should  say  to  me  at  an  afternoon 
tea,  whither  I  had  rather  aimlessly  strolled : 

"  I  got  such  lovely  flowers  from  poor  Mr.  Ding- 
ley  this  morning.  I  have  a  few  of  them  in  my 
dress  now,  —  this  great  Crloire  de  Paris  kind. 
Don't  you  think  them  sweet?  Poor  fellow,  he  's 
feeling  so  dreadfully  about  his  father !  " 

I  looked  at  Rose  firmly.  She  is  a  sort  of  cousin 
of  mine ;  all  the  Rivingtons  are  more  or  less  re- 
lated to  all  the  Manhattans.  But  Rose  did  not 
flinch.  That  amber  eye  of  hers,  which  has  in  it 
the  ray  of  the  topaz,  and  so  matches  her  sweet, 
negligent  opulence  of  tawny  hair,  wore  as  cool 
a  gleam  under  her  Parisian  bonnet  as  though  I 
had  just  ventured  something  blankly  common- 
place, like  the  prophecy  of  an  early  spring.  Rose 
was  the  heiress  of  at  least  three  millions.  Every- 
body knew  the  blocks  of  houses  owned  by  her 
dead  grandfather,  of  whom  she  was  the  sole 
grandchild.  Her  refusal,  two  seasons  ago,  of 
Lord  Romp,  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Pomp,  is 
almost  a  matter  of  history. 

"  Do  —  do  you  actually  like  Lysander  Dingley?" 
I  murmured,  almost  aghast. 


44  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Rose  froze  me  with  one  of  her  polar  looks.  "  I 
think  Mr.  Dingley  charming,"  she  said  with  an 
audacity  that  had  in  it  the  element  of  the  sublime. 
"  And  I  do  hope,  Mark,"  she  went  on,  assuming  a 
manner  of  amazing  confidence,  "that  if  you  have 
any  disagreeable  things  to  say  about  him,  you 
will  reserve  them  for  some  one  who  is  not  his 
friend." 

A  little  later  Johnny  Weehawken  (now  a  full- 
grown  grandee  of  four  and  twenty)  said  to  me  one 
afternoon  in  the  hall  of  the  Metropolitan  Club : 

"Just  been  to  such  a  lovely  breakfast  at  Del- 
monico's.  Ly  Dingley  gave  it." 

" Yes?  "  I  murmured,  raising  my  brows,  involun- 
tarily surprised.  (Lysander  had  now  become  "  Ly  " 
to  this  Columbian  foe  —  this  relentless  Beta  Alpha 
of  former  days.)  "  Was  it  a  large  breakfast  ?"  I 
questioned. 

"  Not  very,"  came  the  drawled  response.     "  Miss 

Hose  Rivington  was  there,  and  the  two  Desbrosses 

girls,  and  a  little  Miss  Riverside  (of  the  Hudson- 

.  Riversides,  you  know,   just  back  from  abroad), 

and  Harry  Van  Coiiear." 

"Harry  Van  Corlear!"  I  thought.  "The  re- 
lentless, the  implacable  Omicron  Psi !  " 

But  I  said  nothing,  and  presently  Johnny  Wee- 
hawken resumed,  while  lighting  a  new  cigarette : 
"  Poor  Ly  made  it  small  because  he  "s  in  mourning 
for  his  guv'nor,  don't  you  know?" 

"Dingley  the  Fur-Man,"  I  said,  without  betray- 
ing myself  by  the  quiver  of  a  muscle. 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.       45 

"Eh?  All?  Yes,"  said  Johnny,  puffing  indus- 
triously at  his  cigarette.  But  I  saw  that  he  did 
not  like  it  at  all.  I  saw  that  he  thought  I  was  in 
very  bad  taste.  Still,  he  soon  broke  into  a  little 
compulsory  laugh,  and  clapped  me  on  the  shoulder. 
"  I  say,  Mark ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  we  must  n't  think 
of  all  that  stuff  any  more.  Ly  's  an  awfully  good 
chap.  We  were  in  college  together  —  Columbia, 
you  know.  I  always  liked  him  then,  and  stood 
up  for  him.  And,  by  Jove !  I  'm  going  to  do  it 
now." 

Johnny  Weehawken  looked  me  full  in  the  eyes 
as  he  made  this  last  remark.  He  did  not  flinch 
any  more  than  Rose  Rivington  had  flinched.  His 
gaze  was  honesty  itself. 

I  have  concluded  that  the  quailing  eye  is  all  a 
myth.  There  is  nothing  so  honest  as  the  calm, 
clear,  frank  gaze  of  the  man  who  knows  he  is  act- 
ing the  part  of  a  fraud,  and  that  you  seriously  sus- 
pect it,  and  that  he  must  do  his  best  to  make  you 
believe  the  contrary.  .  .  .  Next  autumn,  in  a  dog- 
cart of  surpassing  nicety  and  style,  attired  in  the 
deepest  mourning,  and  having  Miss  Rose  Riving- 
ton beside  him,  I  saw  Lysander  Dingley  at  the 
Jerome  Park  races. 

I  am  always  rather  abrupt  with  Rose.  Perhaps 
I  have  always  presumed  too  boldly  upon  our  kin- 
ship. However  this  may  be,  I  got  near  her  at  the 
Grand  Stand,  and  contrived  to  have  a  little  old-time 
sort  of  chat. 

"  Are  you  bringing  that  fellow  Dingley  out  in 


46  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

good  earnest?"  I  asked  her  presently  with  a  cous- 
inly familiarity. 

Rose  turned  her  back  upon  me,  and  would  not 
speak  to  me  for  the  rest  of  that  day. 

The  autumn  faded  into  winter.  When  the  enter- 
tainments began,  I  met  Lysander  Dingley  every- 
where. His  father  had  left  him,  they  said,  two 
millions.  I  halved  the  two  millions,  as  I  always 
do,  in  cases  of  florid  report.  One  was  comfortable, 
at  least. 

I  expressed  this  sentiment  openly  to  Johnny 
Weehawken  at  the  club.  I  still  opposed  the  son 
of  "Dingley  the  Fur-Man."  Besides,  I  had  heard 
of  how  attentive  he  was  to  Rose.  And  in  spite  of 
all  intense  republican  theories,  when  it  comes  to 
mating  our  kinsmen  or  kinswomen  to  people  "  out- 
side our  set,"  the  very  best  of  us  rationalists  and 
radicals  will  recoil. 

"  Oh,  Ly  's  got  two  good  millions,  Mark,  and 
don't  forget  it,"  said  Johnny,  illuming  a  new 
cigarette.  "And  don't  you  run  down  his  fortune, 
of  all  men.  Have  n't  you  heard  the  news  ?  " 

"  What  iieAvs  ?  "  I  queried. 

"  Why,  his  engagement.  He  's  engaged  to  your 
cousin,  the  great  heiress  and  belle,  Rose  Riving- 
ton.  It  was  announced  at  the  Fyshkilles'  dinner 
to-night.  Absolute  fact,  my  dear  fellow  ;  I  *ve  just 
come  from  there.  I  assure  you  there  's  no  mis- 
take." 

There  was  no  mistake,  as  I  soon  learned.  I  kept 
a  very  straight  face  while  I  afterward  congratu- 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  ASPIRES.        47 

lated  Lysander  Dingley.  I  tried  to  keep  a  very 
straight  face,  also,  while  I  congratulated  Rose. 
But  perhaps  I  broke  down  a  little  in  this  last 
attempt. 

Several  months  later,  when  the  marriage  took 
place,  I  found  myself  called  to  Washington  —  or 
was  it  Philadelphia?  But  I  sent  Rose  a  wedding 
present.  It  was  as  handsome  a  sable  muff  as  I 
could  procure. 

But  Mrs.  Lysander  Dingley  never  acknowledged 
the  gift.,  though  I  made  sure  that  she  had 
received  it. 


48  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


V. 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER. 

I  SOMETIMES  think  that  there  is  a  mighty  amount 
of  surreptitious  heroism  in  the  world.  Especially 
in  the  narrow  sphere  allotted  to  women,  does  one 
often  find  indomitable-  traits  of  pluck,  nerve, 
energy,  which  might  have  made  an  actual  historic 
fame  for  their  possessors  if  directed  in  channels  of 
philanthropy,  ethics,  or  even,  let  us  say,  of  right- 
eous revolt.  But  feminine  capability  is  too  often 
like  a  plant  of  hardy  and  wholesome  vigor,  that, 
instead  of  striking  deep  roots  into  as  much  rich 
earth  as  it  may  choose  for  sustenance,  must  bound 
its  desires  by  the  cylindrical  duress  of  a  common 
flower-pot.  It  frequently  does  very  well  in  the 
flower-pot ;  it  thrives  there  with  a  wondrous  thrift ; 
it  unfolds  for  us  leafage  of  unrivalled  texture,  and 
stars  its  greenery  with  perfect  blooms.  But  we 
feel,  nevertheless,  how  stouter  might  have  been  the 
fibres  of  its  stem,  how  much  more  luxuriant  and 
assertive  the  whole  personality  of  the  plant. 

Miss  Fanny  Williams  has  always  suggested  to 
me  this  idea  of  cramped  opportunities.  I  have 
always  thought  that  she  did  wonderfully  well  in 
her  flower-pot,  but  have  concluded  that  she  would 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.     49 

have  flourished  more  brilliantly,  if  not  better,  in  a 
wide,  unrestricted  soil.  I  am  afraid  that  those  who 
care  to  observe  this  little  fragment  which  I  shall 
now  present  from  her  brave  and  noteworthy  biog- 
raphy, will  be  prone  to  accuse  me  of  very  cynic  and 
worldly  views.  They  will  declare  her  as  duteous 
iii  her  way  as  if  she  had  been  a  new  Jeanne  d'Arc. 
But  after  all  this  has  been  admitted  of  Miss  Fanny, 
the  stern  fact  still  remains  that  her  allotted  world 
was  a  narrow  world,  and  that  her  efforts  were  under 
the  ban  of  a  severe  circumstantial  veto. 

She  was  scarcely  more  than  eighteen  when  I  first 
met  her.  It  was  quite  a  fortuitous  meeting.  I  had 
spent  a  day  of  successful  and  exhilarating  blue- 
fishing  with  my  friend  Jack  Gramercy  in  his 
yacht,  on  Long  Island  Sound.  At  evening  we 
disembarked  just  where  Jack's  beautiful  estate  of 
White  Sand  shelves  its  pure  beach  down  to  the 
sea,  from  a  lawn  so  green  and  trim  that  I  fancy  a 
stray  daisy  would  glare  discreditably  on 'its  neat 
slopes,  and  entered  his  ancestral  home  by  that  dire 
portico  of  his,  with  its  appalling  Grecian  pillars  of 
white-painted  wood.  Jack  knows  very  well  how  I 
loathe  that  portico,  reared  as  an  insult  to  architec- 
ture by  one  of  his  Knickerbocker  grandfathers. 
He  used  to  argue  with  me  that  it  was  not  dire,  but 
he  does  so  no  longer.  He  once  urged,  in  the  heat 
of  dispute,  that  it  was  Ionic,  and  I  dare  say  my 
laugh  was  impertinently  shrill.  As  there  are  a 
good  many  horrors  of  the  same  sort  on  Long  Island 
and  in  Westchester  County,  Jack  felt  himself  priv 


50  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ileged  to  cheaply  accuse  me  of  sneering  at  my  own 
land  with,  random  satire,  because  it  was  n't  Europe. 
We  nearly  had  a  quarrel  then,  over  that  awful 
travesty  on  the  calm,  grand  Greek  style  by  which 
one  is  permitted  to  enter  the  most  hospitable  and 
lovely  interior  that  I  know.  But  something  saved 
us  from  a  quarrel  that  day ;  if  I  rightly  remember, 
it  was  some  turn  of  phrase  that  I  made  about  an 
American  Parthenon,  to  which  my  friend  replied 
by  a  sombrely  unwilling  giggle  that  ruined  his 
cause  and  made  us  shake  hands  in  armistice  if  not 
precisely  truce. 

On  this  special  evening  we  passed  from  the  yacht 
under  the  bastard  portico  without  an  arriere  pensee 
of  former  disputes.  Perhaps  we  were  both  too 
anxious  for  the  welcome  change  of  linen  and  the 
welcome  dinner  which  awaited  us.  At  dessert, 
over  our  coffee  and  cigars,  Jack  rather  drowsily 
murmured  something  about  "  a  hop  at  the  hotel  " 
that  same  evening. 

"I  know  what  'a  hop'  means,  Jack,"  I  said 
somewhat  airily ;  "  and  I  think  it  such  a  hateful, 
petty  little  word  when  used  to  tell  of  men  and 
women  meeting  together  for  a  social  dance,  that  I 
devoutly  regret  it  is  an  Americanism.  But  as  for 
the  '  hotel,'  I  confess  that  I  don't  at  all  know  about 
that.  How  long  since  there  has  been  a  hotel 
within  miles  of  your  White  Sand  ?  " 

"  Oh,  ages,"  said  Jack.  "  We  '11  drive  over,  if  you 
say  so.  It 's  a  drowsy,  disconsolate  old  building, 
with  a  ball-room  that  has  a  wainscoting  painted 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.     51 

iii  shiny  drab,  like  an  ancient  cupboard,  and  some 
evil  prints  on  its  wall  of  Washington  crossing 
the  Delaware,  taking  the  oath,  and  doing  numerous 
other  memorable  acts." 

I  found  Jack's  sketch  of  the  ball-room  by  no 
means  too  caustic  a  one,  when  we  both  entered 
it,  about  two  hours  later.  I  suppose  there  must 
have  been  at  least  sixty  people  present.  I  at 
once  noticed  a  preponderance  of  elderly  ladies  with 
worsted  shawls. 

They  sat  glued  against  the  drab  wainscoting  in 
various  attitudes  of  observation,  rumination  or 
depression.  It  seemed  to  me  that  few  of  them 
expressed  anything  like  approbation.  I  wondered 
why  they  did  not  go  to  bed  or  go  elsewhere,  since 
they  apparently  had  no  concern  with  the  merry 
little  children  who  whirled  about  together  in  hoy- 
denish  disregard  of  the  gallantry  between  sexes, 
or  with  the  numerous  very  pretty  damsels  whose 
male  partners  were  mostly  dapper  and  volatile,  but 
by  no  means  prepossessing. 

It  was  on  this  evening,  and  amid  these  environ- 
ments, that  I  drifted  into  the  acquaintance  of 
Fanny  Williams.  I  can  see  her  now,  as  if  I  held 
a  photograph  instead  of  a  pen.  She  was  standing 
under  a  high  kerosene  lamp,  and  she  had  just 
finished  dancing  with  a  young  gentleman  in  very 
ample  white  pantaloons  and  a  sack-coat  of  ethereal 
alpaca.  She  did  not  want  to  dance  any  more, 
and  the  3roung  gentleman,  in  some  satyric  mood 
induced  by  the  rasping  fiddle  and  the  husky  trom- 


52  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

bone,  apparently  wanted  her  to  dance  more.  I 
saw  her  shake  her  head  with  decision  just  before 
I  was  presented,  and  I  recall  being  struck  with  the 
way  in  which  she  moved  it.  There  was  grace 
blent  with  the  refusal.  Her  gesture  indicated  a 
distinct  knowledge  of  her  own  mind,  even  on  this 
trivial  subject. 

When  I  was  presented  to  her,  and  had  talked 
with  her  a  little  while,  I  concluded  that  she  was 
not  at  all  handsome.  She  had  not  a  perfect  feature 
in  her  face,  ,nor  even  a  suggestion  of  beauty  as 
regarded  coloring.  I  must  now  use  an  almost 
amazing  word  with  which  to  describe  her,  and  I 
would  not  use  it  if  I  could  conscientiously  sub- 
stitute any  other,  in  my  capacity  of  faithful  chroni- 
cler. It  is  the  word  "cleanliness."  Everything 
about  the  girl  expressed  the  idea  of  an  extreme 
physical  purity.  She  had  not  a  hint  of  coquetry ; 
her  eyes  were  a  neutral  and  rather  rayless  gray ; 
her  figure  was  not  striking  in  outline ;  her  hands 
and  arms  were  not  moulded  at  all  exceptionally; 
although  she  was  not  awkward  in  the  least,  you 
would  never  have  called  her  graceful ;  in  her  dress 
she  gave  no  impression  of  attempted  adornment; 
and  yet,  when  you  looked  upon  her  you  somehow 
felt  that  the  freshness  of  maidenhood  had  never 
been  more  charmingly  embodied  in  a  feminine 
shape.  A  little  later,  while  we  talked  together,  I 
leaned  in  my  interest  perhaps  a  trifle  nearer  to  her 
face  than  the  etiquette  of  this  hotel  "  hop  "  allowed. 
And  as  I  did  so  I  caught  a  wafture  of  the  breath 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.  53 

which  came  from  her  somewhat  large  mouth,  with 
its  two  rows  of  clear  white,  even  teeth.  That  little 
moment  made  me  think  of  thyme,  clover,  new-mown 
grass.  It  is  an  absurd  thing  to  record,  I  know,  but 
I  devoutly  do  not  want  it  to  be  deemed  a  coarse 
thing.  And  I  place  it  thus  in  my  portraiture  of 
Fanny  Williams  because  I  believe  it  will  make  her 
fascination  more  plain  to  those  who  will  affirm  that 
a  girl  who  is  only  to  be  described  in  negatives  must 
of  necessity  have  no  fascination  whatever. 

She  spoke  with  great  volubility ;  but  she  was  far 
from  being  garrulous  in  a  silly  way.  It  struck  me 
that  she  had  made  up  her  mind  concerning  every- 
thing she  said.  There  were  no  halfway  measures 
in  her  converse.  She  disliked  the  "  hotel "  (I 
think  it  was  called  "The  Pavilion"  or  "The 
Beach  House,"  or  something  like  that),  and  roundly 
asserted  her  dislike.  She  was  entirely  discontented 
with  her  present  surroundings.  She  envied  the 
people  at  Newport.  Did  I  know  Newport  ?  Oh, 
yes !  she  felt  sure  that  I  must,  for  I  had  the  manner 
of  knowing  "  all  about  nice  people." 

To  my  amazement,  this  little  unforeseen  com- 
pliment made  me  alnrost  tingle  with  gratification. 
She  paid  me  a  few  more  during  the  evening,  with 
similar  results.  She  somehow  made  me  decide 
that  I  had  said  a  number  of  clever  things  to  her, 
though,  on  afterward  recalling  our  conversation, 
I  felt  assured  that  she  herself  had  talked  with 
scarcely  a  breathing-space.  During  the  next  few 
minutes  I  learned  that  she  was  a  graduate  of  Mrs. 


54  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Laurent's  well-known  school  in  Fifty-Eighth  Street. 
She  knew  Tilly  This  and  Jenny  That.  Did  I  know 
them?  Some  of  them  were  my  cousins,  others 
were  friends  of  my  cousins,  and  still  others  I  had 
met  in  their  first  New  York  season,  of  the  previous 
year. 

"  Oh,  yes !  it  was  very  gay  last  winter,  was  it 
not?"  hurried  Miss  Williams,  after  permitting 
from  me  an  allusion  to  the  social  gayeties  of  former 
months.  "  I  heard  a  good  deal  about  all  that  was 
going  on.  And,  now  that  I  remember,  I  heard  of 
you.  . .  .  Oh,  yes,  of  course !  Carrie  Houston  told 
me  that  she  led  the  german  with  you  at  that 
great  Delmonico  ball  given  by  the  Ostranders  last 
year." 

"Carrie  Houston  is  also  a  sort  of  cousin  of 
mine,"  I  said.  I  sometimes  feel  an  actual  diffi- 
dence at  confessing  the  immensity  of  my  New 
York  cousinship. 

"  Is  she  ?  Oh,  yes !  Now  that  you  mention  it, 
I  think  that  she  told  me  so.  Carrie  had  such  a 
lovely  time !  I  saw  her  the  next  day.  She  told 
me  —  Well,  mamma?  " 

That  "Well,  mamma,"  on  the  part  of  poor 
Fanny  Williams,  acted  for  me  as  a  burst  of  revela- 
tion. 

"Mamma"  had  just  approached  her  daughter 
by  a  sort  of  detour.  I  did  not  see  the  new-comer 
until  she  had  made  her  presence  quite  unavoidable. 

She  was  a  lady  of  about  forty.  She  did  not 
wear  a  worsted  shawl ;  indeed,  the  dark  plainness 


THE  YOUNG-  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.     55 

of  her  garb  looked  as  if  even  so  commonplace  an 
embellishment  would  have  seemed  unduly  fantas- 
tic there.  She  had  a  face  that  bore  no  resem- 
blance to  her  daughter's,  except  in  a  certain  vague 
expression  about  the  eyes,  which  made  it  possible 
to  concede  that  she  might  be  Fanny's  mother.  It 
was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  perfectly  square 
face  that  I  ever  recollect  seeing;  either  temple 
and  either  jaw  just  missed  describing  an  actual 
point  or  corner.  The  chin  was  so  unnecessarily 
long  that  you  wondered  whether  some  enthusiast 
on  the  origin  of  species  could  not  give  it  a  distinct 
scientific  reason  for  existing.  But  the  whole 
sallow  and  high-cheeked  visage  was  withal  so 
melancholy,  that  it  put  me  in  mind  of  a  jaded 
omnibus  horse,  which  has  all  sorts  of  secret 
grudges  against  its  drivers,  its  bit,  and  the  exten- 
sive patronage  of  its  particular  "  line." 

I  soon  found  that  Mrs.  Williams  was  as  much 
dissatisfied  and  distraite  as  I  had  rapidly  predi- 
cated of  her. 

"Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Manhattan!"  she  said  to  me, 
after  Fanny  had  made  us  known  to  one  another, 
"I  dare  say  you  do  think  the  hop  is  nice. 
Young  folks  usually  like  hops :  I  did  when  I  was 
a  girl." 

It  flashed  across  me  what  an  abnormal,  equine 
girl  the  lady  would  have  made.  Her  voice  seemed 
to  complete  nay  parallel :  it  was  a  kind  of  doleful 
whinny,  but  its  complaint  had  no  trace  of  weak- 
ness; it  was  querulous  without  being  at  all 


56  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

pathetic.  You  at  once  perceive  that  it  could 
rebuke  no  less  than  lament,  that  it  could  scold, 
exact,  threaten,  or  satirize,  all  in  the  same  lugubri- 
ous key.  And  it  was  a  very  nasal  voice  indeed  : 
it  was  la  voix  pleurniclieme  to  perfection,  pealing 
from  a  decidedly  American  organ. 

Mrs.  Williams  now  looked  at  her  daughter,  and 
proceeded:  "Fanny,  here,  thinks  it  elegant  fun 
to  prance  and  gallivant  round  this  room,  sir,  and 
pay  no  more  attention  to  her  poor  ma  'n'r  if  I  was 
in  Kamskattica."  (I  give  the  lady's  pronunciation 
just  as  it  left  —  I  was  going  to  say  her  nostrils.) 
"  Well,  I  s'pose  it 's  half  my  fault,  and  half  her 
poor  dead  pa's.  We  sent  her  to  a  fashnuble 
school,  Maddom  Laureng's,  where  she  was  taught 
more  French  flummery  than  you  can  shake  a  stick 
at,  and  made  to  consider  her  swell  girl  friends  of 
more  consequence  '11  her  own  flesh  and  blood." 

I  looked  at  Fanny.  I  expected  to  see  her 
bathed  in  blushes  of  mortification  at  this  shock- 
ingly ill-bred  speech.  But  her  color  had  not 
varied  in  the  least.  I  thought,  however,  that  her 
smile,  which  had  notably  deepened,  hid  a  posi- 
tive distress,  and  that  she  had  made  it  both 
deepen. and  brighten  from  this  cause. 

"Why,  mamma,"  she  said  very  amiably,  "I 
supposed  you  were  having  a  pleasant  chat  with  Mrs. 
Todd.  You  seemed  to  be  getting  on  charmingly 
together." 

"  Humph !  "  said  Mrs.  Williams.  "  I  guess  you 
know  by  this  time,  Frances,  that  I  think  that 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.     57 

woman  about  the  vulgarest  piece  I  've  come  across 
in  years.  Why,  she 's  always  bragging  'bout  her 
house  in  town  an'  her  servants.  Wat 's  she  do- 
ing here  at  'leven  dollars  a  week,  then,  I  'd  like  to 
know?  She  —  she  —  sets  me  all  on  edge,  that 
woman  does.  An'  you  w'isked  off  an'  left  me 
with  her,  'cause  you  was  asked  by  that  little 
w'ippersnapper  of  a  w'at-'s-his-name  to  dance  the 
gallup.  —  But  that 's  the  way  it  is  alivays"  con- 
tinued Mrs.  Williams,  suddenly  addressing  herself 
to  me.  "  I  'm  nobody  at  all.  I  'm  the  dirt  under 
that  girl's  feet.  I  don't  care  if  I  'm  talkin'  before 
a  stranger  or  not.  If  she 's  mortified,  she  deserves 
to  be  mortified.  I  did  n't  want  to  come  to  this 
hole.  I  wanted  to  go  to  Lake  Mairpac  this  sum- 
mer." ("Mairpac"  was  presumably  "Mahopac.") 
"  But  no,  Fan  thought  it  was  common  there.  I  've 
got  lots  of  lady  friends  there,  sir.  —  Yes,  Frances, 
I  '11  just  tell  the  gentleman ;  I  don't  care  a  bit : 
you  can  like  it  or  lump  it,  just  as  you  choose.  — 
I  'm  tired  o'  being  made  a  mere  stool-pigeon  of, 
for  that 's  w'at  I  am  made  by  that  girl.  I  'm  sat 
upon  by  her  from  morning  till  night.  It 's  '  Ma, 
do  this,'  and  '  Ma,  don't  do  that.'  She  'II  never 
intrerdooce  her  mother  to  a  living  soul.  I  'm  to 
be  shoved  out  o'  sight  and  kep'  in  the  background, 
always.  All  I  'm  good  for  is  to  be  alluded  to  as 
'mammaah,'  or  'deah  mammaah,'  when  she  's 
with  her  swell  friends.  Oh,  I  don't  care,  sir,  if 
my  blood  is  up.  It 's  her  blood,  if  she  is  ashamed 
of  it.  If"  — 


58  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"I  am  not  ashamed  of  it,"  said  Fanny  Williams, 
for  the  first  time  making  any  interruption.  "  You 
know  I  am  not." 

I  have  never  seen  such  perfect  self-control,  in 
all  my  dealings  either  with  men  or  women,  as  I 
now  saw  in  this  young  girl's  face  and  manner. 
Her  smile  had  wholly  gone  ;  her  face  had  taken  a 
sad  and  keenly  weary  look ;  I  almost  imagined 
there  was  a  gleam  of  despair  in  the  gaze  that  she 
momentarily  turned  upon  my  own.  But  her 
restraint,  her  equipoise,  her  command  of  every 
thing  like  anger,  resentment,  or  even  annoyance, 
was  something  truly  magnificent.  I  felt  myself 
by  a  swift  intuition  in  the  presence  of  a  brave, 
splendid  little  creature. 

She  met  her  mother's  spiteful  glance  with  one 
calm  and  soft.  Then  she  stretched  out  her  hand 
and  laid  it  lightly  on  my  arm. 

"  Will  you  come  with  me  —  somewhere  else  ?  " 
she  faltered. 

I  gave  her  my  arm  instantly.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  gallantly  protective  impulses  that  I  have 
ever  had,  and  I  don't  think  I  am  backward  in 
giving  help  where  I  believe  a  good  woman  needs 
it. 

We  both  saw  Mrs.  Williams  recoil  a  little,  while 
Ave  moved  away,  as  if  this  departure  were  a 
crowning  insolence  from  her  abominable  offspring. 
But  we  moved  away,  nevertheless ;  and  I  suppose 
that  I  was  responsible  for  changing  our  quarters 
from  the  hot,  ugly  little  ball-room,  a  few  minutes 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.  59 

later,  to  a  long,  low  piazza,  charming  enough  now, 
whatever  it  may  have  been  by  day. 

Some  dense  honeysuckles  clung  to  the  rails  and 
pillars  in  dusky,  scented  tangles.  A  late  moon 
had  risen,  and  lay  near  the  horizon,  with  its  red, 
broken  disk  giving  it  the  pathos  of  some  far, 
strange,  ruined  world.  But  its  beams  were  strong 
enough  to  make  a  path  of  mild  splendor  on  the 
sleeping  Sound,  and  to  show  us  one  or  two  eerie 
sails  in  the  lighted  offing.  Out  on  the  lawn  a 
salty  breeze  was  waving  the  unseen  boughs  of  the 
foliage  with  that  tender  melody  which  is  perhaps 
the  most  spiritual  of  all  nature's  many  rhythmic 
voices. 

"I  am  very  sorry  that  you  did  not  ask  me  to 
come  away  sooner,"  I  said  to  Fanny  Williams,  and 
I  felt  her  hand  tremble  a  little  against  my  arm 
while  I  spoke.  "I  would  gladly  have  gone  with 

you." 

She  was  silent  for  quite  a  while,  as  we  paced 
the  dim,  void  piazza.  I  stole  a  look  at  her  drooped 
face.  Presently  I  saw  her  lift  it ;  and  then  she 
said,  in  tones  that  were  more  composed  than  I 
had  expected  to  hear : 

"  It  is  very  good  and  kind  of  you,  Mr.  Manhat- 
tan, to  show  so  much  quiet  sympathy  with  me.  .  .  . 
Now,  pray  do  not  say  that  you  have  not  shown  it, 
for,  if  you  have  not,  then  I  have  divined  it;  and  I 
like  to  think  I  have  divined  it,  all  the  same,  even 
if  it  is  not  there.  .  .  .  My  mother  was  very  angiy 
to-night :  it  was  one  of  her  moods.  She  has  them 


60  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

now  and  then.  I  was  terribly  mortified.  She 
becomes  perfectly  reckless  before  people  at  times, 
and  nearly  always  when  I  least  expect  her  to  be 
so.  I  think  these  moods  have  grown  upon  her 
since  my  father  died,  about  four  years  ago.  It  is 
not  true  that  I  neglect  her.  I  do  everything  that 
I  can.  Your  cousin,  Carrie  Houston,  knows  that : 
I  am  sure  she  will  tell  you  if  you  ask  her.  I  have 
a  number  of  real,  true  friends  in  her  set,  as  I  may 
say.  I  love  the  refined  pleasure  that  makes  up  so 
much  of  their  life.  I  should  like  to  be  one  of 
them,  to  have  the  same  harmless  happiness  which 
they  enjoy.  And  they  are  so  good  about  it,  too ; 
they  have  offered  to  get  me  invitations  to  places ; 
they  have  even  procured  them  for  me ;  they  are 
my  warm,  devout  friends,  —  about  seven  or  eight 
of  them.  I  could  tell  you  their  names,  and  I  am 
sure  you  would  know  them  all;  but  it  is  of  no 
use.  My  mother  would  make  my  life  a  misery  if 
I  went  where  she  did  not.  As  it  is,  I  have  to  be 
almost  clandestine  in  my  visits  to  these  girls. 
They  are  my  '  swell  friends,'  as  you  heard  her  say 
not  long  ago.  ...  I  suppose  you  thought  me 
strangely  cold  under  that  last  attack.  But  I  have 
been  through  so  many ;  and  then "  —  Here 
Fanny  Williams  paused,  and  looked  at  me  with 
a  gaze  as  gentle  as  it  was  noble  and  patient. 
"Then,  too,"  she  went  on,  "I  must  always  remem- 
ber that  she  is  —  my  mother." 

"Good  heavens  I  "  I  exclaimed  indignantly.    "  I 
should  think  you  had  every  reason  for  not  remem- 


THE  YOUNG-  LADY  WITH  A  MOTHER.  61 

bering  it.  Such  a  persecution  as  this  is  purely 
monstrous ! " 

She  shook  her  head  in  eager  negative.  "Oh, 
do  not  think  it  is  always  so ! "  she  answered.  "  My 
mother  is  very  pleasant  for  days.  We  get  along 
together  nicely  enough  then.  She  may  be  a  little 
exacting,  you  know,  but  I  don't  mind  that." 

"Indeed  !  "  I  answered  quite  hotly.  "You  are 
a  saint  to  endure  what  you  do.  I  —  I  have  never 
heard  a  more  vulgar  piece  of  bravado  —  a  more 
scandalous  exhibition  of  bad  taste  —  than  I  wit- 
nessed this  evening  on  the  part  of  your  "  — 

"  Stop  ! "  broke  in  Fanny  Williams.  The  moon- 
light showed  me  that  her  eyes  were  sparkling, 
and  that  her  face  expressed  decided  anger  now,  if 
it  had  given  no  trace  of  any  before. 

"You  have  no  right  to  speak  in  that  way," 
she  went  on  crisply  and  sternly  enough.  "  That 
lady,  please  recollect,  is  my  mother,  and  you  now 
address  her  daughter." 

After  what  I  had  seen  and  heard,  this  outburst 
struck  me  as  incomprehensible.  But  of  course  I 
changed  my  tone  to  one  almost  of  apology,  as  I 
said: 

"True  enough,  Miss  Williams.  But  you  must 
be  sensible  of  "  — 

"I  am  sensible  of  but  one  thing,"  broke  in 
Fanny  Williams  with  a  little  stamp  of  her  foot  as 
graceful  as  it  was  irate.  "  You  must  not  speak  of 
my  mother  like  that  in  my  presence.  None  of 
the  girls  dare  to  do  it :  they  know  that  I  would 


62  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

not  stand  it  for  an  instant.  .  .  .  Besides  "...  (and 
here  Fanny's  voice  quivered,  telling  me  of  the 
coming  tears,  that  soon  came  in  full  flood),  "  being 
my  own  mother,  how  —  how  can  I  help  loving 
her  with  all  my  heart,  as  —  as  I  do  love  her,  and 
shall  love  her,  no  matter  what  she  does,  or  what 
she  says  ?  " 

I  half  turned  away.  There  was  something 
about  all  this  that  struck  me  as  more  than  merely 
lovely.  It  was  very  nearly  sublime  as  well. 

What  might  such  patience,  courage,  fidelity,  con- 
tinence, and  self-respect  all  have  resulted  in,  if 
Fanny  Williams  had  been  given  a  wider  sphere 
for  their  exercise  than  this  sweet,  heroic  endurance 
of  a  torturing,  termagant  mother  ? 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS.  63 


VI. 

THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO   LISTENS. 

I  THINK  I  could  not  have  been  older  than  nine 
years  when  I  first  heard  that  Mr.  Prescott  South- 
gate  was  a  thoroughly  solid  man.  He  used  to  dine 
with  my  parents  in  those  earlier  days,  at  our  old 
family  mansion  in  Washington  Square.  I  would 
be  permitted  to  come  down  to  dessert  and  gaze  at 
him  with  boyish  awe  across  my  nibbled  banana  or 
my  fascinating  ice-cream.  I  used  to  connect  him 
with  all  that  was  prosperous  and  luxurious,  and  I 
suppose  that  the  festal  association  clung  about 
him  forever  afterward.  Mamma  always  spoke  of 
him  in  a  hushed  tone;  and  papa,  though  somewhat 
given  to  cynical  comments  upon  every  other 
friend  he  possessed,  would  always  reserve  for 
"Southgate"  a  slow  approving  nod  of  the  head 
and  a  satisfied  smile,  as  if  in  merely  mentioning 
that  gentleman's  name  he  was  indicating  a  per- 
sonality so  far  removed  from  all  the  aspersions  of 
ordinary  disparagement  that  even  fervid  eulogy 
could  not  express  his  solid  excellence.  I  find  my- 
self, while  dipping  among  these  remote  memories, 
still  employing  that  epithet  of  "  solid."  And,  now 
that  I  recall  my  boyish  ideas  concerning  Mr.  Pres- 


64  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cott  Southgate,  it  occurs  to  me  that  I  connected 
the  term  with  his  personal  appearance,  and  used 
to  compare  his  massive  frame  and  his  big  fleshly 
but  not  ungainly  limbs  with  those  of  other  guests 
at  our  board,  in  most  cases  quite  disadvantageous- 
ly  to  the  other  guests.  He  rose  in  our  drawing- 
rooms  like  a  Jupiter.  When  he  warmed  himself 
at  one  of  our  fireplaces,  he  wholly  obscured  the 
glow  or  the  blaze  there.  But  his  mildness  and 
geniality  were  as  immense  as  his  person.  He  was 
not  corpulent  then ;  but,  even  if  he  had  been,  you 
would  no  more  have  remarked  such  a  change  than 
if  they  were  to  put  a  bay-window  in  one  of  the 
upper  stories  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  He 
had  a  soft  brown  beard,  and  the  mildest  of  gray 
eyes;  and  a  smile  lessened  or  greatened  on  his 
large,  serene  face,  but  never  quite  left  it.  I  think, 
that,  if  he  had  ever  been  very  angry  at  anybody 
or  anything,  that  gray  eye  of  his  would  have  pre- 
served a  residuary  twinkle,  to  tell  you,  like  the 
rainbow  in  a  storm,  that  it  would  soon  be  clear 
weather  again. 

The  domestic  hearsay  of  childhood  always  ex- 
erts a  vast  influence.  I  grew  up  in  a  reverential  at- 
titude toward  Mr.  Prescott  Southgate.  It  never 
occurred  to  me  that  he  was  not  a  gentleman  of 
marked  mental  gifts.  It  never  so  far  as  crept  into 
my  intelligence  that  he  was  not  dowered  with  all 
known  or  possible  gifts,  of  whatever  nature.  I 
might,  under  stress  of  artful  suasion,  have  been 
induced  to  doubt  the  capability  of  the  sun  in 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WtiO  LISTENS.  65 

heaven ;  but  I  do  not  think  any  subtlety  or  mo- 
mentum of  argument  could  have  led  me  to 
disbelieve  in  the  stanch  and  over-towering  merits 
of  Mr.  Southgate. 

And  yet  all  this  time  I  had  no  definite  recollec- 
tion of  his  possessing  a  voice.  I  was  very  famil- 
iar with  the  pat  of  his  large  hand  on  the  crown 
of  my  head ;  I  could  shut  my  eyes  and  see  his 
rich,  ample  smile;  I  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  his  grave,  seigniorial  nod;  I  knew  past  error 
the  drowsy,  comfortable  creak  of  his  boots.  But 
when  it  came  to  recalling  his  conversation,  or  even 
the  quality  of  the  tone  in  which  he  uttered  the 
most  ordinary  statement,  I  should  have  found  my- 
self at  a  grievous  retrospective  loss. 

The  inevitable  changes  took  place.  I  went  to 
Harvard,  as  I  have  before  recorded ;  my  poor 
mother  passed  away;  a  dolorous  time  of  mourn- 
ing ensued,  sharply  accentuated  by  that  paralytic 
stroke  which  levelled  my  remaining  parent;  I  was 
a  devoted  nurse  to  poor  father  for  many  months  ; 
finally  the  last  worldly  exit  came  also  for  Ms 
]oved  life ;  I  was  immersed  in  legal  matters  con- 
cerning the  settlement  of  my  large  lot  of  prop- 
erty ;  and  at  length  I  went  abroad,  remaining  for 
a  good  while  among  scenes  and  people  that 
wrought  their  due  effect  of  wholesome  change. 

In  this  way  several  years  passed  without  my 
meeting  or  hearing  of  Mr.  Prescott  Southgate. 
But  the  old  reverence  continued  dormant  with- 
in my  spirit.  If  I  had  been  called  upon,  while 


66  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

abroad,  to  instance  a  pillar  of  American  social 
worthiness,  I  should  instantly  have  bethought  my- 
self of  Mr.  Southgate. 

When  I  returned  to  this  country,  I  found  myself 
rather  promptly  made  a  member  of  the  Metro- 
politan Club.  The  doors  of  the  Metropolitan 
were  not  so  besieged  then  as  now  by  yearning  as- 
pirants. I  was  slipped  quite  easily  into  member- 
ship ;  and  I  recollect,  that,  on  the  first  evening  this 
honor  was  enjoyed,  I  felt  a  desire  to  meet  and 
claim  acquaintance  with  my  father's  old  idol. 

Of  course  he  still  lived.  If  he  had  died,  I 
must  have  heard  about  it.  I  confess  to  an  odd 
sense  of  conviction,  that,  if  I  had  been  either  in 
Egypt  or  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  I  still  must 
have  heard  about  it  had  Mr.  Southgate  died. 

To  be  in  the  Metropolitan  was  naturally  to  re- 
member him.  Youthful  experiences  inseparably 
connected  him  with  the  Metropolitan.  He  had 
always  "  an  engagement  at  the  Metropolitan ; "  or 
he  was  listening  to  some  opinions  of  my  father 
respecting  the  proper  government  of  the  Metro- 
politan ;  or  he  was  blandly  smiling  upon  my  dear 
mother  while  she  playfully  scolded  the  Metro- 
politan for  keeping  papa  out  till  abnormal  hours ; 
or  he  was  receiving  an  urgent  note  from  the 
Metropolitan,  where  somebody  must  see  him  just 
at  the  wrong  time,  before  his  good  old  Madeira 
was  thoroughly  sipped  and  his  heady  post-prandial 
cigar  thoroughly  smoked.  He  had  been  clad  for 
me  with  a  kind  of  Metropolitan  nimbus,  like  that  of 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS.  67 

the  Virgilian  deities.  And  so,  naturally,  entering 
the  halls  of  this  long-respected  club  for  the  first 
time,  I  not  only  anticipated  him  as  an  event,  but 
expected  him  as  a  certainty. 

"  Oh,  he  's  somewhere  about,"  said  my  old  Har- 
vard classmate,  Charley  Tremont.  "He  always 
is."  Charley,  who  dawdles  through  life  as  a  con- 
firmed scoffer  at  nearly  everything  sacred  that  it 
holds,  dropped  his  voice  and  lowered  his  cigarette, 
as  if  with  some  instinctively  respectful  meaning, 
while  he  now  added :  "  Magnificent  old  chap  ! 
Pride  of  the  club,  Mark  !  Wish  we  had  more  like 
him.  He  's  been  elected  a  governor  four  succes- 
sive times.  Fifth  time  he  would  n't  run :  they 
could  n't  get  him  to  do  it.  A  little  aged  now,  but 
still  the  same  fine,  solid,  old-school  trump." 

"Oh,  yes  —  yes  indeed!"  I  replied,  catching  at 
the  word  "  solid."  That  word  had  such  a  homely, 
pleasant,  recognizable  sound ! 

A  little  later  I  met  Mr.  Southgate.  Of  course 
I  had  changed  since  lie  had  last  seen  me.  I  told 
him  that  I  mast  have  done  so,  while  I  grasped  his 
big,  soft  hand.  (They  said  it  had  made  over  a 
million  dollars,  that  hand,  in  the  East  India  trade, 
though  you  would  never  have  supposed  so  from 
its  unroughened  plumpness.)  He  beamed  upon 
me  while  I  talked  with  him.  He  had  changed 
too :  he  had  got,  to  put  it  plainly,  a  palpable 
stomach,  which  he  carried  with  a  really  superb 
majesty.  You  had  to  run  your  eye  downward 
along  his  stately  person  to  be  quite  sure  that  you 


68  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

had  made  110  error  about  his  altered  anatomy. 
But  there  was  no  doubt  concerning  his  wrinkles, 
and  the  airy,  frosty  gray  of  his  beard. 

I  talked  to  him  for  a  good  while.  I  dealt  in 
early  reminiscences.  I  had  a  foolish  feeling  that  I 
wanted  him  to  see  I  was  no  longer  young  —  no 
longer  even  adolescent.  Doubtless  I  was  very 
garrulous,  but  always  in  the  most  courteous  and 
even  allegiant  way.  And  meanwhile  he  listened 
and  also  smiled.  I  forgot  that  he  had  merely 
listened  and  smiled.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he 
had  made  a  great  many  audible  responses,  besides 
listening  and  smiling.  He  finally  pressed  my 
hand  in  farewell,  saying  (or  did  he  only  smile  it  ?) 
something  about  being  called  away  and  seeing  me 
some  other  time.  Yes,  I  am  sure  that  he  must 
have  said  it,  though  on  leaving  him,  and  rejoining 
Charley  Tremont,  I  had  no  positive  impression  of 
his  having  made  any  distinct  vocal  sound  what- 
ever. 

"  Glorious  old  fellow ! "  said  Charley,  as  I  reseated 
myself  at  his  side. 

"  Oh,  glorious  !  "  I  responded.  I  was  thinking 
a  good  deal  of  old  times.  The  dead  days  were 
alive  again  with  me,  no  doubt,  and  the  dear  dead 
faces  were  peering  into  my  spirit  from  that  black 
shadow  which  for  so  long  had  clad  them. 

A  short  time  after  this  I  had  my  little  difficulty 
with  that  club  cad  and  nuisance,  Jones  Jones. 
Everybody  knows  what  Jones  Jones  is.  He  has  a 
way  of  dropping  into  the  club  wretchedly  intoxi- 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS.  69 

cated  at  almost  any  hour,  and  saying  the  most 
rudely  familiar  things.  With  his  very  slim  shape, 
his  unnaturally  pale  face,  his  high,  shrill  voice, 
his  silly  lisp,  his  cackling  laugh,  his  violation  of 
all  polite  usage,  he  is  about  as  complete  a  bore  as 
it  is  possible  to  conceive.  He  picked  a  quarrel 
with  me,  on  this  special  occasion,  in  the  most  un- 
provoked way.  His  rudeness  was  so  flagrant  and 
personal,  that  I  simply  rose  and  told  him  in  a  few 
words,  as  calm  as  I  could  command,  my  intention 
of  insisting  upon  an  apology. 

I  detest  scenes;  I  abhor  publicity.  But  this 
was  a  case  in  which  common  self-respect  seemed 
to  imperatively  demand  a  single  determined 
course.  I  waited  for  my  apology  two  days,  and  it 
did  not  arrive.  Meanwhile  I  had  made  it  plain, 
through  spoken  message,  that  an  amende  of  some 
sort  must  be  given.  Duelling  in  this  country  is 
ludicrous,  and  in  all  countries  it  is  barbarous. 
And  yet  what  could  I  do?  Jones  Jones  had  sent 
me  an  insolent  response,  had  repeated  his  offensive 
words.  In  point  of  physical  power  he  was  so 
thoroughly  my  inferior  (I  believe  the  fellow  was 
dying  then  of  the  consumption  which  drink 
had  brought  him  to,  and  which  ended  his  life  less 
than  a  year  later),  that  any  hostile  assault  on  my 
part  would  have  been  judged  as  rank  cowardice. 

It  was  a  very  difficult  and  awkward  position. 
My  indignation  had  meanwhile  transpired,  and 
gossip  boiled  and  bubbled  at  the  Metropolitan. 
I  had  but  one  course  to  take,  and  I  took  it.  I  ap- 


70  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

pealed  to  the  government  of  the  club  hi  as  dis- 
creet and  unimpassioned  a  letter  as  I  could  write. 

But  Jones  Jones  had  two  cousins  and  a  brother- 
in-law  on  the  governing  committee.  My  complaint 
roused  hot  dispute  and  strong  partisan  feeling.  I 
was  distressed  and  mortified  by  certain  rumors 
that  soon  reached  my  ears.  I  was  summoned 
before  a  conclave  of  governors,  and  asked  ques- 
tions which  hurt  my  dignity  as  a  man  and  my 
sense  of  right  as  a  wholly  blameless  plaintiff. 
Twenty  different  counsellors  urged  me  to  defend 
myself  in  twenty  different  ways.  I  merely  wanted 
ordinary  justice, —  that  supreme  boon  which  man 
has  for  centuries  so  often  craved,  and  so  often 
missed;  and,  if  I  should  fail  to  secure  it,  my 
resolve  was  fixed  regarding  a  resignation  from  the 
club. 

The  whole  affair  distressed  and  annoyed  me 
deeply.  I  slept  ill ;  I  felt  myself  becoming  un- 
doubtedly irritable ;  a  cloud  of  gloom  hung  over 
my  spirits ;  I  was  that  unpleasant  member  of 
society,  a  man  with  a  grievance.  I  knew  myself 
the  victim  of  capricious  report,  and  was  conscious 
that  many  unheard  tongues  were  dealing  idly  and 
recklessly  with  my  name.  The  decision  of  the 
committee  remained  obscure.  Jones  Jones  fre- 
quented the  club,  with  all  his  old  swagger  and 
license.  It  was  at  length  Charley  Tremont  who 
said  to  me  one  afternoon : 

"  Mark,  you  're  a  new  member  here,  but  you 
have  one  good,  stanch  friend.  And  your  friend  is 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS.  71 

a  man  of  great  influence.  I  need  hardly  tell  you 
that  I  mean  Prescott.  Southgate.  Why  don't 
you  go  to  him?  You  should  have  gone  to  him 
before." 

"  True,"  I  said.  I  grasped  Charley's  hand ;  his 
advice  had  seemed  like  the  timely  plank  flung  to 
the  man  who  sinks.  And  I  was  really  sinking,  in 
a  certain  way.  The  delay  of  the  committee's 
decision  had  engendered  a  sort  of  dreary  despair. 

I  waited  that  afternoon  for  the  arrival  of  Mr. 
Southgate.  As  soon  as  he  entered  the  club,  I 
secured  him,  so  to  speak.  I  held  his  hand  while  I 
looked  into  his  genial,  fatherly  face,  that  wakened 
such  tender  and  indeed  holy  reminiscences.  I  felt 
that  I  should  have  gone  to  him  before  now  in  my 
trouble.  We  passed  toward  a  lounge  together,  arid 
sat  there  for  a  long  time.  I  told  him  everything. 
He  listened  with  the  most  irreproachable  atten- 
tion. 

There  is  not  the  vestige  of  a  doubt  that  Mr. 
Prescott  Southgate  listened  with  the  most  irre- 
proachable attention. 

And  presently  I  ended  my  statement,  my  plea, 
rny  defence.  I  fancy  that  I  was  rather  eloquent. 
I  am  sure  that  I  had  spoken  without  wayward  ire 
or  foolish  discomposure.  And  after  speaking  I 
waited  Mr.  Southgate's  answer. 

"I  dare  say  the  committee  will  make  you  all 
right,"  he  said. 

That  was  all.  He  had  nothing  more  to  say.  He 
somehow  left  me  no  doubt  that  he  sided  with  my 


72  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cause.  His  superb  smile,  and  his  almost  magnetic 
cordiality  of  demeanor,  thus  assured  me.  But  he 
had  nothing  more  to  say.  He  had  listened.  He 
had  listened,  I  may  add,  unexceptionably.  I  do 
not  think  it  would  be  possible  for  any  mortal  to 
listen  so  well.  He  had  revealed  just  enough  grav- 
ity, just  enough  suavity,  just  enough  gentle  gayety, 
just  enough  serious  appreciation  ;  but  it  had  all 
been  revealed  through  silence.  I  am  totally  unable 
to  explain  how  this  sympathetic  condition  was 
suggested  to  me.  I  am  not  aware  that  it  is  possi- 
ble for  silence  to  convey  it.  And  yet  nothing 
except  silence  did  convey  it  on  the  occasion  to 
which  I  refer. 

The  club  righted  me  a  few  days  later.  I  was 
exonerated  from  all  blame,  and  Jones  Jones  re- 
ceived the  punishment  of  a  year  of  suspension  for 
his  unprovoked  insolence.  The  poor  fellow  died, 
as  I  have  said,  during  the  next  year.  His  death 
bit  into  my  conscience,  somehow,  though  for  no 
cause.  If  I  had  caned  him  in  the  public  streets, 
as  certain  friends  had  urged  me  to  do,  I  might 
have  had  real  food  for  remorse. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Prescott  Southgate's  treatment 
had  set  me  diligently  thinking.  I  ascribed  many 
causes  to  his  odd  reticence,  finally  concluding  that 
he  had  had  some  cogent  reason  for  remaining  non- 
committal concerning  the  whole  affair. 

I  said  this  one  evening  to  Herbert  Winslow. 
Herbert  is  a  sallow,  placid,  self-contained  man 
about  forty-five  years  old.  He  is  not  popular  in 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LISTENS.  73 

the  club  :  he  is  considered  somewhat  arrogant  and 
exclusive.  The  Wall  Street  clique  (and  how  many 
cliques  there  are  in  the  Metropolitan !)  particu- 
larly dislike  him ;  but  he,  in  turn,  particularly 
dislikes  the  Wall  Street  clique.  He  has  a  com- 
fortable inherited  fortune ;  he  is  not  at  all  a  snob, 
yet  picks  and  chooses  his  associates ;  he  is  a  bach- 
elor of  the  most  methodic  and  unalterable  habits ; 
he  reads  a  good  deal,  and  especially  enjoys  the 
reading  of  the  best  French  books;  he  is  scrupu- 
lously neat  about  his  dress ;  he  has  the  most  ad- 
mirable manners ;  and,  when  he  cares  to  talk,  in 
his  easy,  mellow,  deliberate  voice,  he  can  talk  with 
good  effect  and  notable  shrewdness. 

"  My  dear  Manhattan,"  he  now  said  to  me,  lay- 
ing one  hand  for  an  instant  on  my  arm,  "you 
should  nob  drift  into  the  general  error  about 
Prescott  Southgate.  You  are  quite  too  clever  a 
man  for  that.  You  are  quite  too  keen  an  ob- 
server too." 

I  looked  at  Winslow  surprisedly.  "  The  general 
error  ?  "  I  said.  "  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

Winslow  smiled.  His  hard,  lean,  impassive  face 
seemed  to  soften  for  a  moment  with  much  furtive 
amusement. 

"Why,  Southgate,"  he  murmured  to  me,  "is  a 
supreme  fool.  I  don't  at  all  mean  an  ordinary 
fool.  An  ordinary  fool  could  never  have  had  his 
amazing  social  success.  You  went  to  him  with 
your  little  story.  He  listened  to  it,  of  course.  He 
is  the  prinoe  of  listeners.  You  had  approached 


T4  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

him  at  a  point  of  special  strength.  He  is,  par 
excellence^  the  man  who  listens.  He  has  acquired 
a  truly  immense  reputation  for  just  that  quality. 
Some  men  are  brilliant  in  other  ways.  Southgate 
is  brilliant  through  his  silence.  He  has  the  mar- 
vellous gift  of  making  an  amiable  monosyllable  go 
further  than  a  hundred  earnest  sentences  from 
other  lips.  It  has  always  been  just  this  way  with 
him.  His  deft  employment  of  silence  explains  his 
popularity,  his  high  standing,  his  universal  tribute 
of  respect  and  admiration.  I  called  him  a  fool, 
but  remember  that  I  qualified  my  assertion.  He 
is  the  most  strikingly  clever  fool  I  have  ever 
known.  He  is  wholly  without  ideas,  and  yet  he 
has  contrived  to  make  hundreds  of  people  believe 
that  he  teems  with  ideas.  Behind  his  serenity,  his 
warm  pressure  of  the  hand,  his  twinkle  of  the  eye, 
his  benevolent  massiveness,  corpulence,  stateliness, 
you  will  find  absolutely  nothing.  I  solemnly  be- 
lieve that  he  never  thinks ;  he  has  the  power,  how- 
ever, to  make  other  people  think  that  he  thinks. 
His  great  social  success  has  always  been  a  great 
mystery  to  me.  There  was  never  so  absurd  a 
fraud  as  Prescott  Southgate,  and  there  was  never 
a  fraud  that  managed  to  keep  so  perpetually  undis- 
covered. He  did  not  reply  to  you  the  other  day, 
because  he  had  no  rejoinder  to  give  you  except 
what  he  has  been  giving  mankind  at  large  for  over 
sixty  years,  under  all  possible  circumstances.  I 
mean  his  silence.  He  has  made  more  steady  and 
rich  capital  out  of  silence  —  as  a  cloak  for  mental 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WttO  LISTENS.  75 

stupidity  —  than  nine-tenths  of  his  race  have  made 
out  of  brains,  speech,  and  opinion." 

A  light  had  burst  upon  me  when  Herbert  Wins- 
low  ended.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  watching  the 
cool  cut  and  thrust  of  a  surgeon's  scalpel.  I  have 
never  spoken  since  then  to  Prescott  Southgate ; 
but  I  have  bowed  to  him  a  great  many  times, 
and  I  always  try  to  make  my  bow  deferential  and 
courteous.  One  cannot  but  respect  certain  hum- 
bugs. Their  time-honored  repute  is  a  challenge 
against  disesteem. 


76  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES 


VIL 

THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD  UNGRACEFULLY, 

IT  was  not  hard  to  separate  Mrs.  Grot  on  Nyack 
from  the  idea  of  saying  or  doing  anything  awk- 
ward. She  was  at  all  times  the  pink  of  high- 
breeding.  Even  her  little  rudenesses  and  cruelties 
were  done  without  a  touch  of  vulgarity.  I  some- 
times think  that  she  has  been  the  most  purely 
successful  woman  of  society  that  New  York  has 
ever  known.  Gifted  with  a  neat,  acute  wit,  with 
a  grace,  a  vivacity,  a  desinvolture  quite  irresistible, 
and  with  something  so  nearly  approaching  absolute 
beauty  that  its  defects  took  an  actual  charm  on 
this  account,  Lydia  Chichester  must  have  been 
well  equipped  as  a  girl  to  shine  in  the  world  of 
caste  and  fashion.  As  a  girl,  I  never  knew  her : 
as  a  woman,  I  have  admired  and  almost  loved  her ; 
and,  for  two  or  three  years  after  our  acquaintance 
had  become  a  friendship,  I  used  to  marvel  at  the 
way  in  which  she  contrived  to  blend  the  girl  and 
the  woman.  So  subtle,  in  truth,  was  this  con- 
junction, that  you  could  not  tell  where  the  one 
ended  and  the  other  began.  If  it  were  a  question 
of  chaperonage,  of  quiet  self-assertion,  of  superin- 
tendence over  some  charitable  ladies'  committee, 


THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD  UNGRACEFULLY.      77 

Mrs.  Croton  Nyack  was  very  apt  to  be  both  called 
and  chosen.  If  it  were  a  question  of  dancing  the 
german,  of  being  enthroned  on  a  drag,  of  dining, 
riding,  driving,  or  lawn -tennis  playing,  the  result 
was  similar.  She  enjoyed  all  the  privileges  and 
dignities  of  matronhood  and  all  the  gallant  favors 
and  compliments  which  maidenhood  so  prizes. 

Her  figure  was  slender,  her  movements  were 
harmony  itself,  her  hands  were  white  and  beauti- 
ful. She  made  all  her  steps  and  gestures  briskly : 
her  small,  trim-shod  foot  seemed  to  strike  the  floor 
with  a  delicate  decision  and  assertion.  She  spoke 
with  speed,  too ;  for  her  ideas  flowed  rapidly,  and 
their  expression  was  an  unconscious  and  often  an 
extremely  winning  process.  She  had  no  affecta- 
tions, no  minauderies.  Her  alert  eyelid,  sheathing 
a  bright  gray  eye,  could  not  have  languished  or 
fluttered.  There  was  something  crisp  and  clean- 
.cut  about  her  personality.  I  have  known  days  in 
early  autumn  that  reminded  me  of  her,  with  their 
sharp  yet  tender  outlines  of  foliage,  their  limpid 
skies,  their  swift,  fresh  breezes.  In  all  things  she 
was  the  reverse  of  inactive,  languid,  or  dubious. 
Zest,  vigor,  energy,  had  a  secure  home  in  her 
capable  mind,  her  supple,  agile  frame;  and  yet 
the  needed  repose  of  demeanor  and  action  was 
never  unpleasantly  absent.  I  have  never  seen 
such  vivacity,  such  pliability,  wedded  to  so  secure 
an  effect  of  self-possession  and  easy  elegance.  If 
I  have  sketched  Mrs.  Nyack  with  anything  like 
clearness,  it  will  be  granted  that  she  must  have 


78  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

promptly  conveyed  to  an  observer  the  impression 
of  distinct  if  not  extreme  youth. 

And  yet  when  I  first  met  her  she  had  passed  her 
thirty-ninth  year.  You  might  easily  have  taken 
her  for  five  and  twenty.  I  don't  know  what  she 
did  to  her  wrinkles:  I  am  sure  that  she  did  not 
paint  or  powder  them ;  I  am  doubtful,  indeed,  if 
the  most  minute  ones  had  yet  begun  to  trouble 
her.  She  had  married  Croton  Nyack  (who  was 
by  inheritance  twice  or  thrice  a  millionnaire)  at 
the  age  of  about  one  and  twenty.  A  single  child 
had  been  born  of  their  union,  —  a  girl,  named 
Natalie.  Natalie  was  a  pretty,  soft-eyed  creature, 
with  a  somewhat  timid  manner,  not  a  tithe  of  her 
mother's  brains,  and  almost  the  image  of  her  lazy, 
blond,  gentlemanly  papa.  Lydia  Nyack  had  not 
married  happily.  If  she  had  loved  her  husband 
on  her  wedding-day,  she  was  wholly  indifferent  to 
him  now.  They  lived  about  as  much  apart  from 
one  another  as  husband  and  wife  not  legally  sepa- 
rated can  live.  Croton  had  by  no  means  the 
reputation  of  conjugal  fidelity.  Fifty  scandals 
had  been  set  afloat  concerning  him,  some  of  them 
doubtless  as  arrant  falsehoods  as  gossip  and  rumor 
know  how  to  coin.  He  had  his  yachts,  his  stables 
of  blooded  horses,  his  coaching  interests,  his  racing 
interests,  his  hundred  and  one  pleasurable  dis- 
tractions. Mrs.  Nyack  never  showed  the  slightest 
concern  in  his  goings  and  comings.  When  they 
appeared  publicly  together,  they  seemed  to  be  on 
the  most  amicable  terms.  But  she  never  made 


THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD   UNGRACEFULLY.      79 

the  least  reference  to  her  matrimonial  life.  She 
herself  had  always  been  the  soul  of  decorum. 
Her  friendships  with  men  had  never  even  lapsed 
into  flirtations,  however  mild.  She  had  locked 
the  key  on  all  sentiment  of  this  sort,  and  bid  it  an 
eternal  farewell.  I  think  that  was  why  she  stood 
so  unassailably  high  with  her  countless  friends. 
Her  powers  of  entertainment  were  almost  princely, 
and  she  was  forever  lavishing  them  upon  society. 
She  had  two  or  three  superb  country  homes,  and 
one  noble  mansion  on  Fifth  Avenue,  where  service 
was  a  positively  ideal  matter,  and  the  fine  things 
that  can  be  done  with  great  wealth  aptly  and 
deftly  managed  were  shown  in  a  most  brilliant  yet 
unglaring  way.  If  the  past  had  dealt  her  wounds, 
she  gave  no  sign  of  them  now.  Her  husband's 
follies  had  been  accepted  with  philosophy  :  it  was 
hard  to  imagine  her  not  accepting  any  reverse 
with  philosophy  and  good  sense. 

During  the  winter  of  Natalie's  entrance  into 
society,  I  was  a  good  deal  at  Mrs.  Nyack's  house. 
She  scarcely  ever  dined  at  home  without  three  or 
four  guests.  I  had  always  liked  Natalie  Nyack, 
and  had  always  enjoyed  her  timid  little  expressions 
of  nervousness  and  distrust  regarding  the  great 
balls  at  which  she  must  soon  appear. 

"  Natalie  is  not  a  bit  like  you,"  I  said  to  her 
mother  one  evening. 

Mrs.  Nyack  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  You  are 
quite  right.  She  is  her  father's  own  daughter. 
But  I  can't  think  why  she  should  so  dread  to  go 


80  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

into  society.  She  will  be  very  well  lancee.  I 
shall  make  her  coming-out  ball  a  very  pretty 
affair." 

She  made  it  a  truly  magnificent  affair.  The 
spacious  drawing-rooms  were  decked  with  the 
costliest  flowers,  wherever  such  adornment  was 
possible.  Natalie's  timidity  visibly  lessened  as 
the  evening  wore  on.  I  saw  that  she  had  begun 
to  drink  and  relish  the  vin  capiteux  of  the  flattery 
and  attention  which  met  her  on  every  side. 

But  her  mother  was  by  no  means  in  good 
spirits.  Mrs.  Nyack  had  scarcely  referred  more 
than  once  or  twice  to  the  present  ball,  and  I  now 
perceived  that  either  the  festivity  itself,  or  some 
event  closely  related  to  it,  had  affected  her  with 
an  unwonted  gloom.  A  dulling  and  depressing 
spell  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon  her  old  volatile 
gayety.  She  was  still  perfect  as  a  hostess;  she 
still  bore  herself  with  much  of  the  former  gentle, 
enticing  cordiality.  Perhaps  my  more  familiar 
and  friendly  eyes  detected  the  change  where  it  es- 
caped many  others.  Just  before  the  german  began 
I  found  a  chance  of  saying  to  her : 

"Natalie  has  quite  conquered  her  bashfulness ; 
and  she  looks  bewilderingly  pretty,  in  her  simple 
white  dress,  with  those  big  pearls.  Have  you  no- 
ticed?" 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  replied  Mrs.  Nyack.  She  had  done 
me  the  honor  of  asking  me  to  lead  the  cotillon 
that  evening  with  her  daughter.  "  Shall  you 
begin  presently?"  she  went  on. 


THE  LAD  Y  WHO  GRO  WS  OLD  UNGRA CEFULL  Y.   81 

"The  german?"  I  said.  "Yes.  It  is  almost 
one  o'clock  —  By  the  way,  with  whom  are  you 
dancing  ?  " 

She  gave  a  little  toss  of  her  graceful  head. 
"  Oh !  I  make  a  surrender  to-night,"  she  answered. 

"  A  surrender  ?  "  I  repeated. 

"  Certainly.  In  favor  of  my  daughter  Natalie." 
She  looked  at  me  for  a  moment  with  the  most 
unaccustomed  seriousness.  "  The  idea  of  mother 
and  daughter  dancing  together  in  the  same  ger- 
man !  It  is  absurd.  It  is  even  ridiculous." 

"I  don't  at  all  agree  with  you,"  I  said  warmly. 
"Is  not  your  husband  going  to  dance ?  " 

She  gave  another  laugh,  so  chill  and  odd  that  I 
could  hardly  believe  it  had  issued  from  her  lips 
"  Croton  ?  Oh !  of  course  he  will  dance.  He  will 
dance,  I  suppose,  until  he  is  quite  bald  and  tooth- 
less. In  a  certain  way,  Croton  will  always  be  a 
sort  of  overgrown  boy.  But  —  with  me — well, 
with  me  it  is  wholly  different." 

"I  don't  at  all  see  that  it  is  different!"  I  ex- 
claimed. "You  have  never  thought  before  of 
giving  up  dancing.  You  know  very  well  that  you 
will  be  immensely  missed :  you  are  usually  up  in 
every  figure  —  What  on  earth,  pray,  do  you  in- 
tend to  do  all  through  the  coming  winter  ?  You 
must  go  about  with  Natalie  to  places.  You  can't 
surely  mean  that  you  will  suddenly  settle  down 
like  this?" 

"Yes,  I  shall  settle  down,"  she  replied.  She 
was  not  smiling  at  all  now,  as  she  tapped  my  arm 


82  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

with  her  fan.  "  You  have  just  hit  upon  the  right 
phrase.  I  shall  settle  down."  Immediately  after 
thus  speaking,  she  glided  away  from  me. 

We  met  constantly  during  the  next  few  weeks 
at  a  number  of  different  entertainments.  Mrs. 
Nyack  never  danced  at  any  of  them.  It  struck 
me  that  she  was  by  no  means  enjoying  herself. 
She  had  always  before  appeared  to  enjoy  herself 
with  such  an  extreme  heartiness !  You  seldom 
heard  her  laugh  sound  above  the  music ;  you  did 
not  see  the  bright  flash  of  her  smile  half  so  often 
as  before.  I  had  never  thought  of  her  age  pre- 
viously, but  I  somehow  thought  of  it  now.  Had 
it  suddenly  made  itself  manifest  in  her  counte- 
nance ?  I  was  not  sure ;  and  yet,  with  the  cessation 
of  her  former  buoyancy,  new  lines,  or  the  sugges- 
tions of  lines,  seemed  to  have  stolen  out  on  cheek, 
brow,  and  temple  with  a  vaguely  marring  effect. 

Natalie,  meanwhile,  had  lost  every  trace  of  her 
maidenly  shyness.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the 
only  child  of  Croton  Nyack  had  become  a  belle. 
But  Natalie  deserved  to  be  a  belle.  She  had  no 
wit,  no  power  to  be  adroit,  rus£e,  captivating; 
but  she  thoroughly  liked  all  the  pomp  and  cere- 
mony of  fashion,  and  had  frank,  girlish  charms, 
which,  when  her  devotees  remembered  them  as 
stoutly  backed  by  her  father's  wealth,  were  in  no 
danger  of  being  undervalued. 

"  I  see  that  Natalie  tolerates  that  shocking  little 
Ten  Broeck  boy,"  I  said  to  Mrs.  Nyack  one  after- 
noon at  a  tea. 


THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD  UNGRACEFULLY.      83 

"Tolerates  him! "was  the  unexpected  answer. 
"  I  suspect  that  she  likes  him  very  much  indeed." 

"Really?"  I  murmured.  "I  should  never  have 
imagined  it.  Of  course  he  is  sole  heir  to  the  mas- 
sive Ten  Broeck  fortune.  But  lie  "  — 

"Pray,  say  no  more,"  broke  in  Mrs.  Nyack  with 
quick  interruption. 

I  had  intended  to  add  that  Bond  Ten  Broeck  was 
a  silly  babbler,  with  white  eyelashes  and  the  brain 
of  a  kitten  ;  but  I  did  not  add  this,  for  a  sudden 
surmise  kept  me  silent. 

One  evening  not  long  afterward,  I  dined  at 
Mrs.  Nyack's  house.  There  were  several  other 
guests.  Natalie  sat  low-lidded  and  pre-occupied 
all  through  dinner.  I  had  no  chance  of  address- 
ing her  until  afterward,  in  the  drawing-room,  when 
the  men  came  in  to  join  the  ladies. 

"You  are  somehow  not  your  bright  self  this 
evening,"  I  said.  We  occupied  a  rather  remote 
lounge  together.  If  I  had  spoken  much  more 
loudly  than  I  did  speak,  I  still  would  not  have 
been  heard  by  any  one  save  her  whom  I  ad- 
dressed. 

Natalie  lifted  her  soft  eyes,  and  let  them  dwell 
very  disconsolately  upon  mine.  Her  lip  quivered 
for  an  instant.  I  perceived,  somehow,  that  she  had 
the  impulse  of  making  me  a  confidence,  and  then 
that  she  restrained  this  impulse,  as  though  it  were 
not  to  be  sensibly  entertained. 

"  I  have  n't  been  feeling  just  right,"  she  said. 

I  leaned  a  little  closer  to  Natalie  then.     "  Is 


84  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

it  ill  health  ? "  I  questioned,  "  or  is  it  some 
trouble?" 

She  started,  and  laid  her  hand  on  my  arm.  "  It 
—  it  is  some  trouble,"  she  faltered.  Then  she 
turned  quickly  for  an  instant  toward  where  her 
mother  was  seated.  "I  —  I  am  very  unhappy," 
she  gently  continued. 

"  You  've  no  reason  to  be,"  I  ventured,  perhaps 
a  good  deal  too  callously  and  tentatively. 

"  No  reason ! "  echoed  Natalie.  She  looked  at 
me  with  great  earnestness  for  a  very  short  space 
of  time.  I  don't  know  what  she  saw  in  my  face, 
I  fancy  that  she  saw  considerable  sympathy  there. 
I  had  begun  to  do  more  than  suspect  how  matters 
stood. 

"  Are  you  going  to  the  Westerveldts'  party  to- 
night?" I  asked. 

"  No,"  said  Natalie,  shaking  her  head.  "  Mamma 
does  not  wish  me  to  go."  She  suddenly  regarded 
me  with  a  feverish  intentness.  "  Don't  tell  mamma 
I  said  that,"  she  proceeded.  "  But  I  'm  afraid  you 
will,  for  you  and  mamma  are  such  good  friends." 

"  I  promise  you  that  I  will  say  nothing,"  came  my 
answer.  "  Has  your  mother  forbidden  you  to  go  ?  " 

"  Oh,  not  at  all ! "  said  Natalie,  furtively  bright- 
ening. She  lowered  her  voice  to  a  whisper  now. 
"But  mamma  has  given  reasons.  The  Wester- 
veldts  are  not  specially  desirable  people.  It  is  a 
very  small  affair,  at  which  only  a  few  unmarried 
girls  will  be  present.  I  —  I  was  asked  (so  she  says) 
only  because  I  am  Miss  Nyack.  But  I  understand 


THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD  UNGRACEFULLY.      85 

it  all.  How  can  I  help  understanding  it  all  ?  I — 
I  have  seen  it  for  weeks  —  for  months.  I  saw  it 
when  there  was  first  the  least  talk  of  my  going 
out  into  society.  It  —  it  has  been  a  stone  round 
my  neck.  It  —  it  was  this  that  made  me,  so  timid 
when  I  was  a  debutante.  It  has  always  been  dis- 
tressing me  ever  since." 

These  last  sentences  were  so  excitedly  uttered 
that  I  could  scarcely  believe  them  delivered  by  the 
placid,  obedient  little  girl  whom  I  had  thus  far 
always  known.  I  mused  for  a  short  while  before 
I  spoke  again.  I  am  afraid  that  I  had  a  latent 
motive  in  my  demur. 

"  Do  you  mean,"  I  said  very  quietly,  "  that  your 
mother  is  not  your  good  friend?  " 

Natalie  curled  her  lip  in  a  covert  yet  bitter 
way.  "I  mean,"  she  declared  vehemently  under 
her  breath,  "  that  mamma  is  my  enemy.  Yes,  I 
know  it  is  horrible  for  me  to  say  so.  I  have  lain 
awake  at  night,  thinking  just  how  horrible  it  is. 
But  I  can't  help  saying  it  now,  for  it  is  true.  I 
don't  mean  that  mamma  hates  me  :  it  is  something 
else  that  she  hates;  and  I  represent  that  'some- 
thing else.'  I  show  her  that  she  is  growing  old ; 
and  growing  old  is  horrible  to  her.  She  shrinks 
from  it  as  if  it  were  a  pest.  I  dare  say  she  can't 
help  it.  She  clings  so  to  her  youth  —  to  her  re- 
pute for  being  young !  It  is  agony  for  her  to  be 
placed  among  the  matrons,  the  dowagers.  I  should 
never  have  been  her  child.  She  should  never  have 
had  a  child.  But  I  grew  up,  I  became  of  age,  and 


86  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

she  had  to  bring  me  out.  And  now  she  has  but 
one  aim,  one  desire,  one  intention." 

"What  intention?"  I  asked.  I  was  shocked -as 
I  put  my  question,  for  I  knew  that  the  poor  girl 
suffered  greatly. 

"Don't  you  know?"  Natalie  answered  with  as 
bitter  a  little  roll  of  laughter  as  I  have  ever  heard 
leave  feminine  lips.  "  Mamma  wants  to  marry  me. 
I — I  dorft  wish  to  give  you  the  idea  that  she  hates 
me;  bub  she  hates  me  to  be  as  I  am,  —  to  show 
her  monde  that  she  must  take  a  back  seat,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  — to  appear  in  the  motherly  role.  She 
was  alway  charming  to  me  till  I  grew  up ;  she  is 
always  charming  to  everybody.  But,  since  I  have 
begun  to  share  her  reign  with  her,  all  is  altered. 
I  make  her  suffer  by  my  very  presence.  She  wishes 
me  away.  She  cannot  endure  me.  And  now" 
(here  Natalie's  voice  broke  miserably),  "now  she 
wants  me  to — to  marry  Bond"  — 

"  Good-evening,  Miss  Natalie,"  said  a  voice  quite 
near  us. 

Bond  Ten  Broeck,  with  his  uneasy  little  figure, 
his  white  eyelashes,  his  preposterously  self-satisfied 
manner,  had  just  put  out  a  lank,  gloved  hand  to- 
ward my  companion. 

"  Carn't  you  spare  me  even  a  look  ?  "  chattered 
Bond  Ten  Broeck.  "  Of  cawse,  I  know  you  're 
talking  with  Mr.  Manhattan,  and  I  suppose  that 
means  you  're  enjoying  yourself  desperately ;  but 
still"  — 

I  did  not  hear  any  more  of  Mr.  Ten  Broeck's  con.- 


THE  LADY  WHO  GROWS  OLD  UNGRACEFULLY.      87 

ventiorial  jargon.  I  rose  and  excused  myself;  and 
I  felt  immeasurably  sorry  for  poor  little  Natalie  as 
I  did  so. 

Less  than  three  months  later  I  went  to  her  wed- 
ding. Ten  Broeck  was  the  bridegroom.  Every 
body  said  it  was  such  an  admirable  match.  Natalie 
made  a  very  pale  bride ;  but  she  was  loaded  with 
costly  laces,  and  she  glittered  with  noble  diamonds. 

Her  mother  was  in  high  spirits  at  the  wedding. 
I  happened  to  find  myself  quite  near  to  her  just 
before  the  bride  and  groom  departed.  She  knew 
nothing  of  her  poor  little  daughter's  pathetic  inter- 
view with  myself  weeks  ago.  She  was  regally- 
dressed,  in  violet  velvet,  with  a  blaze  of  turquoise- 
stones  about  her  slender  throat.  She  looked  like  a 
queen  or  a  crown-princess. 

"  I  feel  quite  young,"  she  said  to  me,  laughing. 
"  I  am  no  longer  a  dowager,  you  know.  I  have 
taken  a  new  lease  of  youth.  After  this  I  shall  be 
able  to  grow  old  at  my  leisure." 

I  looked  her  full  in  the  eyes.  What  I  said  I 
could  not  help  saying,  and  I  don't  know  that  I 
have  ever  really  regretted  saying  it. 

"  Grow  old  slowly  or  as  quickly  as  you  please,"  I 
murmured,  "  but  hereafter  take  care  that  you  grow 
old  more  gracefully  than  you  have  done  thus  far.'* 

She  stared  at  me  haughtily  for  an  instant.  I 
saw  the  color  rush  to  her  face.  She  never  forgave 
me. 

Since  then  Mrs.  Croton  Nyack  and  I  have  been 
on  the  most  distant  terms  of  acquaintanceship. 


88  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


VIII. 

A  MILLIONAIRE  MARTYR. 

I  FIRST  met  Mr.  Amasa  G.  Pancoast  at  Sharon 
about  four  years  ago,  and  he  at  once  deeply  inter- 
ested me.  I  became  acquainted  with  his  wife,  his 
daughter,  and  his  son  before  I  met  the  gentleman 
himself.  They  did  not  interest  me  at  all.  They 
belonged  each  one  to  a  class  with  which  Ameri- 
can association  had  thus  far  rather  drearily  famil- 
iarized me. 

Mrs.  Pancoast  was  certainly  fifty,  almost  obese 
in  her  extreme  stoutness,  and  perpetually  fanning 
herself.  She  had  small,  plump  hands  that  were 
never  tired,  morning,  noon,  or  night,  of  swaying  a 
fan  before  her  large,  plump  face.  She  was  afflicted 
with  perspiration;  and  little  drops  of  it  would 
trickle  downward  along  the  full  curve  of  her  florid 
cheek,  even  when  a  brisk  breeze  was  blowing  and 
when  everybody  else  felt  comparatively  cool.  I 
suspected  from  the  first  that  Mrs.  Pancoast's  trou- 
ble came  from  tight  lacing,  and  I  have  never  had 
reason  to  reverse  my  decision.  She  always  ex- 
hibited her  fleshy  person  in  close-clinging  robes  of 
great  apparent  price.  She  did  not  so  much  im- 
press me  as  being  vulgar :  she  seemed,  rather,  to 


A  MILLIONNAIRE  MARTYR.  89 

have  once  been  excessively  vulgar  and  to  have 
made  a  reformatory  change.  She  produced  upon 
me  the  effect  of  always  holding  herself  in.  My 
allusion  has  no  physical  importance,  for  she  always, 
with  her  glistening  and  costly  bodices,  gave  one 
the  idea  of  being  held  in,  as  regarded  an  almost 
corpulent  person.  But  in  speech,  in  action,  in 
gesture,  I  detected  an  incessant  underhand  effort 
at  self-control.  When  she  addressed  me  with  a 
sentence  of  ordinary  civility,  I  always  had  an 
idea  that  she  was  grammatically  steering  among 
shoals  and  quicksands.  I  can't  just  tell  why  this 
feeling  assailed  me,  for  her  syntax  never,  to  my 
knowledge,  contained  any  gross  fault.  She  was, 
in  truth,  a  wonderfully  clever  woman.  She  had 
been  a  nobody  in  past  years,  without  a  doubt. 
There  was  a  story  circulated  that  she  had  been  a 
factory-girl  before  her  marriage  with  Amasa  G. 
Pancoast;  but,  if  this  be  true,  she  was  certainly 
a  very  efficient  and  capable  factory-girl.  She  had 
evidently  risen  from  some  grade  much  lower  than 
that  which  she  now  occupied.  The  traces  of  her 
quick  progress  were  somehow  manifest  in  every- 
thing that  she  did  or  said.  She  was  the  most  posi- 
tive and  salient  type  of  an  American  woman. 
She  was  common  without  showing  a  trace  of 
actual  commonness.  She  did  not  say  "you 
was"  for  "you  were,"  and  yet  one  constantly 
fancied  that  she  was  on  the  verge  of  doing  so. 
She  had  used  her  prosperity  with  an  enormous 
vigor  and  cleverness.  She  had  rapidly  incrust- 


90  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ed  herself  with  a  film  of  spurious  and  factitious 
culture. 

I  thought  her  execrable.  I  am  not  a  bit  of  a 
dilettante^  and  I  usually  keep  my  offended  shud- 
ders for  things  which  justly  invoke  them.  But 
Mrs.  Pancoast,  with  her  loud  toilets,  with  her 
oscillating  fan,  with  her  evident  struggle  of  flesh 
to  escape  its  stylish  bounds,  with  her  enigmatical 
arrangement  of  tresses  that  were,  perhaps,  three 
good  parts  not  her  own,  affected  me  as  wholly  un- 
pleasant. 

Her  daughter,  Maud,  pleased  me  still  less.  The 
usual  people  whom  you  meet  at  Sharon  thought 
Mrs.  Pancoast  altogether  undesirable  ;  but  I  am 
afraid  that  they  thought  Miss  Maud  Pancoast  an 
actual  horror.  This  young  lady  resembled  her 
mother ;  she  was  not  yet  stout,  but  a  little  close 
scrutiny  would  have  convinced  you  that  she  must 
soon  be  very  stout  indeed.  Like  her  mother,  Miss 
Maud  dressed  with  remarkable  richness  and  splen- 
dor. She  had  rather  square  shoulders,  and  she 
kept  them  always  heightened,  as  if,  in  some  mili- 
tary manner,  she  were  constantly  on  a  sort  of 
parade.  She  was  indeed  constantly  on  a  sort  of 
dress-parade.  When  she  wanted  to  use  her  cam- 
bric handkerchief  (or  perhaps  I  should  say  when 
she  did  not  want  to  use  it),  she  flirted  it  forth  from 
her  pocket  with  a  most  ostentatious  crook  of  the 
elbow.  She  had  large,  hard,  cold  black  eyes,  that 
she  was  forever  rolling.  I  have  never  seen  eyes 
"used"  more  pertinaciously.  She  could  not 


A  MILLIONNAIRE  MARTYR.  91 

glance  at  a  hotel  waiter  without  some  suggestion 
of  a  desire  to  enmesh  and  snare  him.  She  was 
what  you  call  bad  style,  from  the  toe  of  her  ab- 
surdly-heeled French  boot  to  the  daintiest  curl  of 
her  bandolined  hair,  plastered  close  against  her 
low,  broad  forehead.  You  felt,  as  you  looked  at 
her,  that  she  considered  herself  immensely  four- 
ree  in  fashionable  habits  and  occupations.  She 
had  never  been  visited,  this  pranksome  and  restive 
Miss  Maud,  with  the  vaguest  premonition  that  she 
was  atrociously  out  of  taste.  She  looked  upon 
her  mother  as  a  great  lady,  a  thorough-paced  pa- 
trician. This  was  by  no  means  a  case  where  the 
American  daughter  had  shot  ahead  of  and  over- 
towered  the  American  mother.  Nothing  could  be 
more  filially  decorous  than  the  attitude  of  Maud 
toward  her  mother.  I  am  convinced  that  she 
thought  her  a  superb  and  brilliant  personage ;  it 
was  like  a  hollyhock  envying  a  sunflower.  They 
would  occasionally  meet  on  the  piazza  of  the  hotel 
in  their  rustling,  crackling,  befurbelowed  robes; 
and  then  Maud  would  always  take  one  of  her 
mother's  hands  in  both  her  own,  and  say  with  her 
cold,  black  eyes,  if  she  did  not  say  it  with  her  lips, 
"  You  are  perfect.  There  is  nobody  like  you.  I 
would  give  anything  to  be  so  stylish  and  showy 
and  truly  grand."  Sometimes  she  would  pick,  at 
these  meetings,  some  little  shred  or  speck  from 
her  mother's  dress,  and  with  an  air  of  fond  solici- 
tude, as  though  a  being  so  superfine  should  not 
have  the  least  flaw  upon  her  raiment. 


92  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

The  son  and  brother,  Augustus  (or  Gussie) 
Pancoast,  was  about  two  years,  I  should  say,  the 
junior  of  Maud.  I  do  not  recall  ever  having  seen 
him  twice  in  the  same  trousers.  He  had  a  thin, 
pale  face,  with  a  tiny  waxed  mustache,  and  he 
used  to  look  at  you  over  the  stiff,  high  band  of 
his  collar  as  though  he  knew  some  clever  way  of 
popping  his  head  down  below  it,  like  a  startled 
turtle's.  You  could  not  closely  regard  him  with- 
out perceiving  that  he  was  enormously  wise  in  a 
worldly  sense.  He  was  incessantly  smoking  cigar- 
ettes, which  I  am  sure  increased  his  sickly  pallor ; 
but  through  their  smoke  gleamed  his  little  black, 
sharp  eyes  with  an  irony  of  acuteness.  I  some- 
times had  an  idea  that  he  hid  a  vast  Mephistophe- 
lian  knowledge  of  everything  evil.  For  a  youth 
of  eighteen,  his  life  was  certainly  a  most  unhealthy 
one.  He  haunted  the  bar-room  of  the  hotel  a  good 
deal,  and  looked  at  me  with  incredulity  when  I 
told  him  that  I  was  not  in  the  habit  of  taking  a 
morning  "cocktail."  Mr.  Gussie  took  morning, 
noon,  and  night  "cocktails,"  I  am  nearly  sure, 
and  a  quantity  of  intermediate  ones  besides.  He 
always  donned  the  most  festal-looking  shoes; 
they  were  either  topped  with  drab  cloth  and 
dotted  with  pearl  buttons,  or  they  were  of  some 
tawny  undressed  leather  blent  with  canvas,  or 
they  were  marvels  of  brilliancy  and  decorative 
stitching.  It  seemed  to  me,  also,  that  if  he  had  a 
fresh  pair  of  trousers  for  every  day,  he  had  a  fresh 
necktie  for  every  hour.  He  appeared  to  be  on 


A  MILLIONNAIRE  MARTYR.  93 

intimate  terms  with  all  the  functionaries  of  the 
hotel.  I  suspected  that  he  flung  his  fees  and 
perquisites  ostentatiously  broadcast,  and  so  won 
their  almost  cringing  courtesies.  His  walk  was  a 
loitering  swagger,  and  he  rarely  got  through  a  sen- 
tence without  some  touch  of  pointed  slang. 

One  more  figure  completed  this  rather  unique 
family  group.  It  was  Mr.  Amasa  G.  Pancoast 
himself,  the  husband  and  father.  If  the  other 
members  of  his  race  challenged  sarcasm  and  even 
contempt,  Mr.  Pancoast  was  very  far  from  doing 
so ;  but  he  seemed  to  challenge  the  sarcasm  and 
contempt  of  his  wife  and  children,  and  to  provoke 
it  as  well. 

Their  disrespect  toward  him  was  undisguised 
and  flagrant.  There  appeared  to  be  a  relentless 
and  continued  conspiracy  in  the  matter  of  brow- 
beating him.  I  learned  certain  facts  concerning 
his  life  a  few  weeks  later,  which  it  will  be  best  to 
record  here  and  now.  He  had  acquired  a  very 
large  fortune  years  ago  as  a  ready-made  clothier, 
which  he  had  afterward  doubled  and  quadrupled 
by  discreet  investments  in  real  estate.  He  must 
have  been  considerably  past  sixty.  His  clean- 
shorn  face,  with  its  arched  and  rather  shrivelled 
nose,  its  wide,  pink,  benevolent  lips,  its  kindly, 
dim  eyes,  its  pale,  sparse  growth  of  locks  at  either 
temple,  and  its  general  expression  of  patient  gen- 
tleness, I  found  peculiarly  agreeable.  He  would 
sit  for  hours  on  one  special  portion  of  the  piazza, 
silent,  ruminative,  and  yet  giving  you  the  im- 


94  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

pression  that  he  would  be  glad  to  talk,  if  you 
chose  to  engage  him  in  conversation. 

I  chose  one  morning  thus  to  engage  him.  I 
acted  partly  from  curiosity  and  partly  from  pity. 
He  seemed  so  aloof  from  all  the  young  blood,  the 
pleasure-seeking,  the  insouciance,  of  the  crowded 
hotel !  And,  moreover,  his  own  kith  and  kin  at 
all  times  had  so  elbowed  him  aside,  so  discounte- 
nanced and  repulsed  him ! 

I  found  him  a  kind  of  sweetly  loquacious  old 
gentleman.  I  discovered  that  he  liked  very  much 
to  talk,  after  his  own  rambling,  grammarless,  yet 
wholly  human  and  genuine  fashion. 

"  My  eyes  ain't  very  smart,"  he  presently  told 
me,  "  and,  ef  I  read  the  papers  much,  I  have  to 
pay  for  it.  I  used  allus  to  read  three  or  four 
o'  the  papers  of  a  day.  But  I  don't  miss  'em, 
somehow.  I  ain't  interested  in  stocks  no  more, 
and  I  've  settled  most  o'  my  money-dealin's  in  a 
solid,  s'cure  way.  I  jest  come  up  here  t'  please 
my  folks.  I  dessay  you  know  one  or  two  of  'em, 
eh?" 

"I  think  that  I  know  them  all,"  I  answered. 

Mr.  Pancoast  put  his  head  on  one  side  while  he 
now  gazed  at  me.  There  was  plaintiveness  and 
yet  pride  in  his  manner  and  gaze.  "  I  guess  you 
ain't  found  a  lady  in  this  country  more  stylish  '11 
my  wife  is,"  he  said.  "  Don't  you  think  she  's 
pretty  stylish  ?  Come,  now." 

"I  think  she's  very  stylish  indeed,"  I  answered 
propitiatingly,  though  not  quite  untruthfully. 


A  MILLIONNAIRE  MARTYR.  95 

"And  Maud?"  Mr.  Pancoast  proceeded. 
"  She  's  a  reg'lar  picture,  ain't  she  ? " 

"  Oh  !  of  course." 

"  And  then  that  son  o'  mine,  —  Guss.  What 
that  young  rascal  don't  know  ain't  worth  for- 
gettin'." 

"  Your  son  certainly  seems  to  have  had  a  very 
great  experience,"  I  conceded. 

Mr.  Pancoast  gave  a  little  suggestive  nod. 
"  Don't  you  make  any  mistake,"  he  said.  He  now 
rubbed  both  his  wrinkled  hands  together  with  a 
gleeful  restlessness.  He  also  winked  at  me,  and  I 
soon  perceived  that  he  had  a  great  capacity  for 
winking.  At  the  same  time  there  was  a  decided 
undercurrent  of  melancholy  in  his  demeanor. 
"  They  don't  allus  treat  me  right,  any  of  'em.  I 
ain't  come  up  to  their  ellergant  habits,  you  see. 
I  'in  'fraid  they  kinder  impose  on  me.  Yes,  sir, 
I  'm  a  good  deal  'fraid  they  do.  But  I  don't  kick 
much.  I  guess  I  don't  kick  't  all.  I  s'pose  I 
begun  wrong  with  the  children,  —  Maud  and 
Gussie.  I  got  married  a  little  later  'n  I  ought, 
p'r'aps,  and  I  felt  so  proud  of  'em  when  I  'd  had 
'em,  that  they  kinder  got  the  upper  hand  o'  me 
'fore  I  knew  it.  I  ain't  the  same  's  I  used  to  be 
neither.  I  bin  sick,  sir,  for  three  or  four  years. 
My  wife  don't  b'lieve  it,  nor  the  children  either ; 
but  my  —  my  head  ain't  what  it  was,  and  so  I 
can't  show  much  spunk.  A  sick  man  most  allus 
can't ;  you  know  how  that  is.  But  I  'm  proud  of 
'em  all.  I'm  genooine  proud  of  'em.  They  all 


96  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cut  a  dash.  I  watch  'ein,  and  I  can  see  that.  It 's 
as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face." 

A  moment  later  Mrs.  Pancoast  joined  her  hus- 
band and  myself.  The  former  relapsed  into  meek 
silence  as  soon  as  she  appeared.  She  had  evi- 
dently heard  the  recent  words  of  her  husband 
from  some  unsuspected  ambush. 

"  Arnasa,"  she  said,  "  it 's  time  you  took  your 
nap." 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  exclaimed  Gussie  Pancoast,  who 
strutted  and  lounged  up  to  us  almost  immediately. 
"You  had  better  go  and  take  your  nap,  dad. 
This  air  makes  you  sleepy.  The  doctor  says  you 
ought  to  get  all  the  rest  you  can." 

Mr.  Gussie  Pancoast  and  his  mother  now  each 
took  one  of  the  old  gentleman's  arms,  assisted  him 
to  rise,  and  coolly  led  him  away. 

Just  as  they  were  doing  so,  Miss  Maud  appeared 
at  my  side.  She  gave  a  little  high  and  shrill 
laugh  as  she  fixed  her  black  eyes  upon  me. 

"  You  must  n't  mind  what  pa  says,"  the  young 
lady  now  declared  to  me.  "Pa's  a  little  queer." 
And  Maud  significantly  touched  her  forehead, 
where  the  bandolined  curls  were. 

As  Mr.  Pancoast  was  disappearing  with  his  wife 
and  son,  I  noticed  that  he  walked  uncertainly,  in- 
securely, in  one  leg.  But  just  as  he  was  passing 
into  the  house  he  turned  and  looked  at  Maud  and 
myself,  where  we  stood  together.  His  face  ex- 
pressed great  kindliness. 

"I  have  not  seen  that  your  father  is  'queer/  in 


A  MILLIONAIRE  MARTYR.  97 

tlie  way  you  evidently  mean,"  I  said  to  Maud,  and 
110  doubt  I  spoke  rather  scornfully.  "  But  I  know 
what  I  would  do,  if  I  were  he.  I  wouldn't  be 
taken  into  the  house  like  that.  I  would  n't  do  any- 
thing against  my  will." 

"Who  says  it's  against  his  will?"  exclaimed 
Maud  with  not  a  little  heat. 

"/say  so,"  was  my  response. 

Maud  gave  a  toss  of  the  head.  Then  she  meas- 
ured me,  with  hostility,  from  crown  to  sole.  Her 
voice  was  now  sullenly  defiant. 

"  I  guess  we  know  how  to  take  care  of  him  better 
than  you  do,"  she  affirmed  gloomily  and  doggedly. 

I  smiled.  "  No  doubt  you  do,"  I  said.  "  Or, 
rather,  no  doubt  you  ought  to  know.  But  I  think 
a  good  doctor  might  know  better  than  either  of  us." 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  "  declared  Maud.  "  Don't  tell  us 
about  doctors!  We  've  tried  lots  of  doctors  for  pa. 
He  is  n't  half  so  sick  as  he  looks.  He  '11  drop  off 
some  day,  of  course.  He  's  had  one  stroke,  and 
he 's  bound  to  have  another.  We  're  as  kind  to 
him  as  we  know  how."  Here  Maud  drew  herself 
up  haughtily.  "  Upon  my  word,"  she  continued, 
"  I  do  believe  that  ma  knows  how  to  manage  her 
own  husband,  and  Gussie  and  I  know  how  to  man- 
age our  own  father  ! "  Maud  looked  very  black, 
but  I  was  not  at  all  intimidated. 

"  Your  father  needs  medical  attendance,"  I  said? 
as  politely  as  I  could  frame  the  words.  "  There  is 
a  very  skilful  doctor  here  in  the  hotel,  but  I  have 
not  ever  seen  him  speak  to  Mr.  Pancoast." 


98  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Maud  frowned.  "  That  *s  our  business !  "  she 
retorted,  sweeping  away  from  me  with  excessive 
disdain. 

I  thought  over  the  Pancoasts  that  evening, 
while  I  smoked  a  cigar  at  my  window,  before 
going  to  bed. 

"  They  want  him  to  die,"  I  told  myself  with  a 
shudder.  "  It 's  horrible,  but  it 's  true.  He  's 
worth  several  millions,  and  though  he  does  not 
hug  them  closely,  though  he  lets  that  flaring  wife 
flare  with  them,  that  pretentious  daughter  pretend 
with  them,  that  dissipated  son  dissipate  with  them, 
he  still  guards  them  from  actual  possession  by  a 
sort  of  proprietary  instinct  which  none  of  these 
three  harpies  can  destroy.  He  is  ill,  and  they 
know  it,  and  they  would  be  glad  if  death  ended 
his  illness  and  unearthed  the  will  which  leaves 
each  one  of  them  independently  rich.  It  is  n't 
murder  —  oh,  no  !  of  course  it  is  not !  Skilled 
physicians  have  prolonged  lives  for  years  after 
they  have  been  maimed  and  hurt  just  as  his  life 
has  been.  But  the  three  Pancoasts  do  not  con- 
cern themselves  with  skilled  physicians,  or  with 
unskilled.  They  watch  and  wait.  They  have 
never  exchanged  a  word  together  of  what  they 
mean  and  what  they  want.  But  they  watch  and 
wait.  It  is  horrible,  but  it  is  true  ! " 

In  the  following  autumn  Mr.  Amasa  G.  Pancoast 
died  somewhat  suddenly.  His  three  bereaved  rel- 
atives went  abroad  very  soon  after  the  funeral. 


A  MILLIONNAIRE  MARTYR.  99 

They  had  all  been  social  failures  here.  But  I 
heard  last  winter  that  Miss  Maud  Pancoast  was 
about  to  marry  the  second  son  of  the  Earl  of 
Sillery,  the  Honorable  Edward  Froth. 

I  bitterly  wondered  what  her  father  would  have 
said  about  this  marriage,  if  he  had  still  been  alive. 
And  yet  I  could  not  help  concluding  that  he 
would  have  added,  in  his  sweetly  gentle  way,  one 
more  arrow  to  the  pessimist's  quiverful  of  those  he 
is  always  so  glad  to  use  against  the  mockery  and 
sin  and  shame  of  human  nature,  by  amiably  mur- 
muring: 

"  I  'm  proud  of  'em  all.  I  'm  genooine  proud  of 
'em.  They  all  cut  a  dash.  I  watch  'em,  and  I  can 
see  that.  It 's  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face." 


100  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


IX. 

A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA. 

I  DO  not  think  there  is  a  more  unpopular  man 
in  the  Metropolitan  Club  than  Horace  Dilloway. 
And  yet  this  fact  has  always  been  an  enigma  to 
me.  I  know  a  number  of  men  there  who  deserve 
the  dislike  of  their  fellows  far  more  than  he.  True, 
Horace  is  saliently  objectionable.  He  has  a  per- 
fectly round  face,  guiltless  of  the  least  hairy 
appendage,  and  usually  inflamed  by  constant  pota- 
tions in  a  very  florid  way.  His  body  is  obese  and 
ungainly.  His  trousers  always  look  as  if  his  fat 
limbs  were  too  large  for  them,  and  sag  loosely  at 
the  knees,  leaving  his  boots  unduly  exposed.  If  he 
rises  from  a  chair,  he  has  to  pull  them  down ;  other- 
wise there  would  be  danger  of  their  exposing  his 
thick  ankles.  He .  has  little  pink,  flabby  excres- 
cences on  the  knuckles  of  his  small,  pudgy  hands. 
His  stomach  describes  so  large  and  positive  a  curve 
that  when  he  is  erect  it  seems  as  if  all  the  rest  of 
his  body  were  in  an  attitude  of  support,  no  doubt 
existing  for  the  observer  as  to  what  it  is  support- 
ing. He  is  very  communicative,  very  loquacious, 
very  gregarious.  No  club  member  is  exempt  from 
him.  He  has  not  the  slightest  concern  about  asso- 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TlTANIA.  101 

elating  with  any  particular  set.  He  knows  all  sets 
intimately,  and  is  equally  disapproved  by  all.  The 
most  austere  governor  is  liable  to  be  buttonholed 
by  him ;  the  most  retiring  and  unsocial  man  is  in 
daily  danger  of  his  company.  You  may  barricade 
yourself  behind  a  copy  of  the  "  Tribune,"  anxious  to 
read  it,  and  feeling  in  a  mood  which  even  the  pos- 
sible society  of  your  twin-brother  would  not  please ; 
or  you  may  have  the  inclination  for  companionship 
which  would  make  you  chat  with  the  waiter  who 
pours  out  your  soda  and  brandy.  It  is  all  one  with 
Horace  Dilloway.  He  is  inevitable  as  the  three 
fatal  Greek  sisters.  You  never  know  when  he  may 
not  ensconce  himself  at  your  side.  That  you  are 
pleased  to  see  him,  he  magnificently  takes  for 
granted.  He  does  not  solicit  your  civility:  he 
demands  it.  There  is  something  royal  and  imperial 
about  his  intrusiveness. 

I  fell  to  almost  liking  him  on  this  account.  His 
unconsciousness  of  being  a  dreadful  bore  pre- 
vented him  from  boring  me.  He  seemed  to  me  an 
exquisite  study.  The  cool  broadsides  that  he  lev- 
elled against  all  my  outworks  of  reserve  made  me 
smile  inwardly  at  my  own  disarray.  You  could  no 
more  discountenance  or  suppress  him  than  if  he 
had  been  a  fog  or  a  rainy  afternoon. 

He  seemed  wofully  unlettered,  though  there  had 
been  excellent  reason  for  an  opposite  result.  His 
father,  a  man  of  fortune,  had  sent  him  to  college, 
and  he  had  afterward  travelled  abroad.  He  had 
married  two  or  three  years  later.  I  knew  that  his 


102  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

wife  had  been  one  of  the  Van  Wagenens,  and  that 
she  was  already  the  mother  of  several  children. 
But  I  had  never  met  her.  She  went  out  very  little 
into  society.  If  I  thought  of  her  at  all,  it  was  with 
a  thrill  of  pity.  Of  course,  being  a  Van  Wagenen, 
she  had  married  Horace  Dilloway  solely  because 
of  his  money.  What  else  could  it  possibly  have 
been?  Everybody  knew  how  her  father,  gay, 
spendthrift  Louis  Van  Wagenen  (I  can  see  his 
jaunty  little  pointed  white  mustache  now,  and 
his  gold  eyeglass,  and  his  perennial  rosebud),  had 
died,  leaving  almost  nothing  but  debts.  What  girl, 
so  placed,  could  have  refused  such  an  offer  as 
Horace's  ? 

But  it  was  not  surprising  that  she  rarely  went 
out.  I  found  myself  pitying  her  more  and  more 
as  I  became  better  acquainted  with  Horace.  I 
made  a  few  inquiries  among  people  as  to  what  she 
was  like.  Was  she  pretty  ?  Had  she  elegance  and 
style?  Could  it  be  possible  that  she  possessed 
brains  and  culture  ?  But  no  one  could  answer  my 
questions.  I  happened  each  time,  I  suppose,  to 
hit  upon  the  wrong  person.  After  a  while  I  began 
to  feel  myself  the  prey  of  a  morbid,  curious, 
haunting  fancy.  This  fancy  concerned  the  un- 
known and  compassionated  Mrs.  Horace  Dilloway. 
I  wondered  whether  she  did  not  need  advice,  en- 
couragement, support.  It  was  no  common  calamity 
for  a  woman  of  refinement  to  be  linked  in  lifelong 
bondage  with  such  a  distressing  creature  as  Horace 
Dilloway.  And  I  had  known  her  father  so  well, 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          103 

here  in  these  very  walls;  had  laughed  at  his 
quaint,  worldly-wise  sayings;  had  giggled  (I 
shame  to  record)  over  some  of  the  naughty  French 
stories  which  old  Louis  told  so  inimitably  below 
his  pointed  white  mustache !  (And  I  used  some- 
times to  marvel,  by  the  way,  that  it  should  not 
have  turned  any  other  hue  than  that  beautiful 
chaste  white.) 

I  felt  certain  that  Horace's  young  wife  was  en- 
during martyrdom.  As  a  return  for  all  the  keen 
social  enjoyment  that  her  father  had  given  me,  did 
I  not  owe  his  daughter  some  sort  of  friendly  and 
helpful  office  ? 

The  words  "my  wife"  were  not  seldom  on 
Horace's  lips.  But  for  a  long  time  I  refrained 
from  asking  him  the  least  question  concerning 
Mrs.  Dilloway.  How  could  he  speak  of  her  with 
proper  respect,  when  his  daily  existence  was  one 
continued  scorn  of  her  claims  to  it?  I  dreaded 
the  shock  of  being  called  upon  to  infer  from  what 
he  might  tell  me  that  young  Mrs.  Dilloway  was 
simply  trampled  into  the  earth.  At  least  three 
times  a  week  Horace  would  leave  the  club  in  a 
cab  long  after  midnight,  and  with  a  mind  whose 
condition  even  the  'most  charitable  critic  must 
have  pronounced  cloudy.  What  torture,  on  these 
occasions,  must  his  poor  spouse  be  experiencing ! 
Or  was  she  indifferent  to  all  his  wretched  irregu- 
larities ?  Far  better,  I  decided,  that  she  should  be 
so ;  and  yet  how  improbable,  since  she  was  the 
mother  of  his  children,  and  no  doubt  a  woman 


104  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

sensitive  under  the  insult  of  such  vulgar  neglect 
and  disdain !  At  length,  one  afternoon,  when  he 
had  joined  me  in  the  large  smoking-room  of  the 
club,  I  mentioned  the  fact  of  Mrs.  Dilloway's  rare 
appearances  in  society.  "  She  does  not  suffer  from 
ill  health,  I  hope,"  were  my  concluding  words. 

Horace  threw  back  his  head  and  gave  an  amused 
chuckle  I  "  Health !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  O  Lord  I 
she  's  never  sick  a  bit.  She 's  as  strong  as  a  four- 
year-old.  She  don't  look  it,  but  she  is."  Here  he 
seemed  to  ruminate  for  a  moment,  if  any  really 
meditative  mood  can  truthfully  be  chronicled  con- 
cerning him.  Then  he  burst  into  his  coarse 
guffaw  of  a  laugh.  "  Oh !  she  's  a  whole  team, 
Isabel  is,"  he  proceeded.  "  She  beats  me  all 
holler.  I  tell  her  so.  I  ain't  much  on  books :  I 
s'pose  you  know  that,  Manhattan,  old  boy.  But 
she !  why,  there  ain't  a  book  that  comes  out,  I 
guess,  that  my  wife  don't  read.  And  talk  about 
'em  after  she  's  read  'em !  Why,  I  've  heard  her 
argue  about  Henry  W.  Emerson  and  Ralph  Waldo 
Longfellow  with  friends  o'  mine  that  knew  what 
they  were  a-talkin'  of,  don't  you  understand? 
—  well)  as  I  guess  pretty  few  ladies  in  America 
could  dream  o'  doin'." 

"  Indeed !  "  I  murmured. 

"And  this  man,"  I  thought,  "  was  graduated  not 
very  long  ago  from  Columbia  College.  What  a 
sarcastic  comment  upon  the  refining  and  scholarly 
influences  of  our  republican  universities !  " 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  continued  Horace  Dilloway.    "  Isa- 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          105 

bel  's  a  reg'lar  stunner  at  all  that  kind  o'  thing." 
Here  he  paused,  and  suddenly  put  his  roseate, 
moony  face  very  much  on  one  side.  Then  as  sud- 
denly he  drew  forth  a  big  watch  bearing  his  mon- 
ogram in  diamonds,  opened  it,  and  regarded  it. 
"  I  say,  old  boy,  come  round  and  dine  with  us  to- 
night. Got  any  other  engagement?  " 

"No,"  I  said;  "but  I  have  not  yet  dressed  for 
dinner.  I  thought  of  dining  a  little  late  this  even- 
ing, as  I  went  to  a  large  lunch  at  Delmonico's  this 
afternoon,  which  has  played  havoc  with  my  appe- 
tite. You  know,  my  quarters  are  just  in  the  next 
street,  and"  — 

Horace  here  clapped  my  knee  with  one  of  his 
pink,  puffy  hands.  "  Oh,  never  mind  about  a 
dress-coat !  "  he  interrupted.  "  Come  around.  It 's 
all  right.  I  never  dress  for  dinner.  She  won't 
mind.  It 's  nearly  dinner-time  now.  Let 's  just 
jump  into  a  cab." 

"We  did.  Horace  lived  in  a  handsome  basement 
house  in  Twenty-Eighth  Street.  A  spruce  butler 
opened  the  door  for  us.  We  presently  entered  a 
tasteful  little  reception-room,  where  Mrs.  Dilloway 
waited. 

"  This  is  my  wife,"  said  Horace  in  his  bluff,  al- 
most brutal  way.  "Isabel,  you've  heard  me  talk 
about  Mr.  Manhattan.  Well,  here  he  is.  He  's 
come  to  eat  some  dinner  with  us.  I  hope  we  've 
got  something  decent ;  I  'm  devlish  hungry ;  I  had 
a  cocktail  or  two  this  afternoon,  and  it  makes  me 
feel  kind  o'  peckish.  —  Well,  now,  Manhattan, 


106  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

you  washed  your  hands  at  the  club,  and  I  did  n't. 
I  '11  just  go  up  stairs  and  wash  'em,  and  then  I  '11 
join  you  in  the  dinin'-room.  —  By  the  way,  Iz,  is 
dinner  ready?" 

"Yes,  Horry,"  said  Mrs.  Dilloway.  "  Dinner  is 
served." 

The  voice  with  which  this  brief  reply  was  given 
could  not  well  have  been  more  musical,  and  the 
lady  who  delivered  it  seemed  to  me  a  most  exqui- 
site type  of  feminine  beauty.  I  at  once  detected 
her  resemblance  to  her  dead  father.  She  had  his 
straight  patrician  nose,  his  delicate  lips,  his  finely 
moulded  temples.  She  was  quite  blond,  and 
wore  her  glossy  tresses  banded  in  plaits  about  her 
graceful,  symmetrical  head.  She  had  an  enchant- 
ing smile ;  her  large,  soft  blue  eyes  were  full  of  in- 
telligence ;  her  figure  had  true  Greek  curves  in  its 
pliant  slenderness.  Her  dress  was  of  some  black 
lace-like  fabric,  and  she  had  a  knot  of  golden 
flowers  at  her  breast.  Her  long,  supple,  aristo- 
cratic hands  were  cased  in  gloves  of  a  dark  hue, 
that  reached  high  up  her  arm,  whose  perfect  con- 
tour the  flowing  sleeve  left  apparent.  I  do  not 
think  it  hyperbole  to  call  her  angelic.  And  this 
was  Horace  Dillo way's  wife !  And  I  had  just 
heard  her  address  him  by  the  endearing  name  of 
"Horry." 

We  had  a  little  conversation  together  before 
going  into  the  dining-room.  I  was  positively  dazed 
by  what  I  heard  her  say.  It  was  almost  exactly 
of  this  meaning,  if  I  lose  the  precise  phrase : 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          107 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Manhattan,  I  have  heard  my  husband 
speak  of  you.  Dear  Horry  tells  me  about  nearly 
all  his  club  friends.  I  am  sure  that  you  make  it 
very  pleasant  for  him,  there  at  the  Metropolitan. 
He  enjoys  it  so  !  He  tells  me  what  charming 
times  he  has." 

"  And  you,  Mrs.  Dilloway  ?  "  I  then  ventured. 
"  Have  you  as  charming  times  as  he  ?  " 

She  smiled  radiantly  for  an  instant.  She 
looked  like  a  lovely  picture  by  Greuze  as  she  did 
so.  "Oh,  I  manage  to  amuse  myself,"  she  an- 
swered with  a  sweet,  demure  confidence.  "I 
don't  mind  when  Horry  is  away,  because  I  am  sure 
that  he  is  having  a  pleasant  time.  And  then  I 
have  my  books  —  I  am  a  great  reader.  My  books 
and  the  care  of  my  dear  children,  —  these  occupy 
me  quite  thoroughly  whenever  my  husband  is 
away." 

"  Horace  told  me  you  were  fond  of  books,"  I 
now  said. 

"Immensely,"  returned  Mrs.  Dilloway.  She 
drooped  her  soft  eyes  for  a  moment,  and  then 
lifted  them,  liquid  and  gleaming.  "  I  have  been 
so  interested  lately,"  she  gently  exclaimed  in  that 
voice  of  hers  which  was  so  exquisite  for  its  deli- 
cious modulation  and  cadence,  "by  a  work  that 
you  may  not  yet  have  seen !  It  is  an  attempted 
refutation  of  Herbert  Spencer's  'Philosophy.'' 
She  here  named  the  book  and  its  author.  "  The 
view  taken,"  she  went  on,  "  is  entirely  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  German  philosophers.  Now,  I 


108  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

am  intensely  averse  to  the  German  philosophers.  I 
feel  that  the  Baconian  inductive  theory  is  the  only 
stable  and  secure  one.  I  read  German  with  a 
good  deal  of  ease,  and  I  can  never  bring  myself  to 
repose  the  least  faith  in  Kant,  Hegel,  or  Fichte. 
They  are  all  such  shadowy  personages.  Bacon,  to 
my  thinking,  refutes  them  all.  But  this  work, 
while  it  deals  very  fairly  with  the  Baconian  theory, 
still "  — 

"Well!  Both  o'  you  here  yet!  Why  ain't 
dinner  served?  Iz,  had  n't  you  better  ring  and 
see?" 

This  interruption  was  made  by  Horace,  who 
now  abruptly  appeared.  A  little  later  we  all 
three  passed  into  the  dining-room,  where  a  dinner 
of  excellent  quality  was  served  us,  with  every 
desirable  nicety  of  attendance.  Mrs.  Dilloway 
looked  like  a  young  queen  —  and  a  very  pure  and 
lovely  one  —  as  she  sat  there  at  the  head  of  her 
husband's  board,  with  her  curve  of  slim  white 
throat  and  her  classic  profile  gleaming  so  fair  and 
calm  above  her  black-lace  draperies.  I  should 
be  almost  afraid  to  speculate  upon  what  Horace 
looked  like,  seated  opposite  this  fragile  and  ador- 
able creature.  His  "  cocktail  or  two,"  so  candidly 
admitted  not  long  ago,  had  encrimsoned  his  spa- 
cious and  circular  face.  Seen  just  above  an  epergne 
full  of  loose  flowers  and  fern-sprays,  the  effect  was 
peculiar :  it  made  me  think  of  a  sunset  in  the 
tropics. 

"Well,  Manhattan,  I  s'pose  you  and  my  wife 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          109 

have  been  havin'  a  reg'lar  booky  talk,  eh  ?  I 
guess  I  must  polish  up  my  lit'rature  if  I  'm  going 
to  have  readin'  chaps  like  you  come  round  to  din- 
ner. —  Before  I  married  you,  Iz,  I  used  to  read 
nearly  every  novel  that  came  out.  Lemme  see 
—  there  was  one  fellow  that  just  took  the  cake 
with  me.  George  Eliot  —  yes,  that  was  the  one. 
Didn't  he  write  4  The  Woman  in  White,'  and  '  Foul 
Play'?" 

Mrs.  Dilloway  immediately  began,  in  her  placid 
voice,  to  set  Horace  right  regarding  these  questions 
of  authorship.  She  did  so  without  a  sign  of  an- 
noyance or  embarrassment.  She  seemed  totally 
unconscious  that  he  was  ridiculous  or  grotesque. 
His  illiterate  manner,  which  really  sprang  less 
from  ignorance  than  from  a  certain  distinctly 
American  recklessness  of  speech  and  deportment, 
did  not  appear  to  occasion  her  a  qualm.  Now  and 
then  her  sweet  eyes  rested  on  his  inflamed  face, 
which  fresh  draughts  of  claret  had  not  rendered 
by  any  means  paler,  and  I  thought  there  was 
something  more  than  mere  fondness  in  her  gaze. 

"  For  trey 's  the  big  thing  with  you,  Iz,  ain't  it  ?  " 
presently  broke  forth  Horace.  (He  pronounced 
the  word  "poetry"  as  nearly  like  what  I  have 
written  as  possible.)  "Look  here,  Manhattan,  my 
wife  can  string  you  off  about  half  what  the  famous 
poets  have  written,  from  Tennyson  to  Byron  — 
Oh,  lemme  see  —  Tennyson  came  before  Byron, 
did  n't  he?" 

"Yes,  Horry,   considerably  before,'*  said   Mrs. 


110  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Dilloway  with  a  light,  suave,  careless  laugh. 
"Are  you  fond  of  Tennyson,  Mr.  Manhattan?" 
she  continued,  exclusively  addressing  myself. 

"  Excessively  fond,"  I  answered. 

"  Right,  sir,  every  time ! "  declared  Horace,  while 
he  devoured  an  olive.  "  Tennyson  beats  'em  all, 
don't  he  ?  I  can't  ever  read  his  '  Hiawatha '  with- 
out I  cry.  It 's  a  fact.  I  think  it 's  the  most 
elegant  poem  I  ever  read." 

Mrs.  Dilloway  again  corrected  her  husband  — 
not  at  all  as  though  he  had  made  an  absurd  blun- 
der, but  with  the  quiet  aplomb  of  one  who  points 
an  ordinary  error.  "  I  am  glad  that  you  like 
Tennyson,"  she  afterward  said,  addressing  myself. 
"  He  is  to  me  very  great.  His  '  In  Memoriam ' 
always  affects  me  like  the  sea.  It  seems  to  break 
on  countless  shores  of  thought ;  it  washes  untold 
regions  of  speculation  and  philosophy.  I  disagree 
with  its  conclusion,  which  is  orthodox;  I  should 
prefer  an  agnostic  ending.  Should  not  you,  Mr. 
Manhattan  ?  " 

I  almost  stammered  as  I  answered.  I  am  not 
by  any  means  sure  just  what  conclusion  to  "In 
Memoriam  "  I  told  Mrs.  Dilloway  that  I  should 
have  preferred.  I  was  lost  in  bewilderment, 
amazement.  I  had  been  unprepared  for  her  in 
every  way;  I  was  now  unprepared  to  hear  her 
speak  of  Tennyson.  There  seemed  such  an  enor- 
mous gulf  between  Tennyson  and  Horace  Dillo- 
way I 

I  suppose  that  I  must  have  said  a  few  words 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          Ill 

about  Browning.  People  are  very  apt  to  do  so 
when  they  are  at  a  loss  for  something  to  respond, 
and  as  confused  as  I  undoubtedly  was  at  present. 

"  Browning  !  "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Dilloway.  "  Do 
you  really  mean  that  you  put  him  above  Tenny- 
son? I  can  hardly  believe  that  anyone  should 
rank  him  higher.  He  is  to  me  a  poet  who  has 
flung  away  nearly  all  chances  of  permanent 
future  greatness.  He  has,  it  is  true,  done  extraor- 
dinary things.  But  the  surest  literary  preserva- 
tive is  style.  Browning,  in  my  opinion,  has  no 
style.  He  wilfully  wraps  himself  in  obscurity. 
No  great  poet  has  ever  done  that.  He  is,  I  think, 
surrounded  by  an  adulating  English  clique  who 
will  lose  their  fervor  of  esteem  as  soon  as  he  dies. 
He  is  not  a  true  artist.  Only  the  true  artists  live. 
Slipshod  technique,  careless  rhyme,  contempt  for 
the  understanding  of  one's  readers,  may  create,  if 
properly  set  before  the  public,  a  clientele,  an 
adorning  coterie.  Browning  deserves  no  immor- 
tality—  not  because  he  has  not  the  genius  to 
secure  one,  but  because  he  has  served  his  genius 
foolishly.  He  has  done  that  unfortunate  thing  for 
a  great  man ;  he  has  preferred  to  make  himself  a 
fashion.  I  grow  sad  when  I  think  of  this  man's 
wasted  ability.  He  might  have  been  supreme. 
He  might  have  been"  — 

Just  then  we  were  interrupted  by  a  sonorous 
snore.  Horace  had  fallen  into  a  profound  sleep. 
His  head  hung  on  one  side.  There  was  no  doubt 
about  his  somnolence. 


112  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Mrs.  Dilloway  rose.  "  Poor  Horry ! "  she  mur- 
mured. "  He  is  so  tired  !  " 

I  sat  astounded.  I  saw  her  go  up  to  her  hus- 
baud,  and  pass  one  hand  over  his  coarse,  dark  hair. 
Horace  awakened,  straightened  himself,  and 
mumbled  something. 

Mrs.  Dilloway  looked  at  me.  "  Poor,  dear  Horry 
is  very  tired,"  she  said.  A  moment  afterward  she 
stooped  and  kissed  his  forehead. 

They  were  an  immense  contrast  as  I  watched 
them  side  by  side.  It  was  delicacy  and  vulgarity 
brought  into  close  nearness ;  it  was  intellect,  edu- 
cation, enlightenment,  standing  at  the  elbow  of 
stupidity,  idle  loquacity,  self-assertive  fatuity. 

And  yet  this  woman  loved  this  man.  She  was 
happy  with  him.  There  could  not  be  a  doubt  that 
she  was  happy  with  him.  This  lily  loved  this 
weed  of  the  mire.  It  was  all  one  of  nature's  odd 
arrangements.  I  saw  it  in  the  way  her  hand 
smoothed  his  bristly  and  unpoetic  locks.  I  saw  it 
in  her  exquisite  smile,  which  a  man  of  twenty 
times  finer  calibre  than  Horace  Dilloway's  might 
have  been  proud  to  win. 

That  dinner  remained  indestructibly  memorable 
with  me.  He  and  she  were  the  most  ill-mated 
couple  under  the  sun.  Some  mad  fantasy  had 
gained  rule  over  Mrs.  Dilloway.  In  time  she 
would  wake  up  to  a  sense  of  her  own  dreadful  mis- 
take. She  was  still  very  young.  Yes,  in  time  she 
would  wake  up.  Thus  I  then  believed. 

About  six  months  later  I  heard  that  Horace's 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  TITANIA.          113 

wife  had  borne  him  another  child.  I  remembered 
Bottom  and  Titania.  Must  there  not  ultimately, 
I  asked  myself,  be  a  revival,  an  alteration  ?  But 
although  I  patiently  waited,  neither  came.  Mrs. 
Dilloway  remained  stanch  and  loyal  to  her  lord. 
She  loved  him,  and  that  expressed  it  all.  The 
magic  juice  had  been  squeezed  into  her  eyes. 
Yes,  she  was  Titania,  he  Bottom.  It  was,  in  its 
way,  one  of  those  incredible  arrangements,  a  per- 
fect marriage.  All  my  pity,  all  my  prognostica- 
tions, had  been  thrown  away.  She  had  her 
opinions,  her  views,  her  ideals.  He  went  to  the 
club  and  drank  untold  whiskey:  she  analyzed 
the  relative  genius  of  Tennyson  or  of  Browning. 
He  tippled,  lounged,  bored  you,  talked  of  nothing : 
she  staid  at  home,  and  read  Herbert  Spencer.  He 
was  utterly  unworthy  of  her:  she  found  him 
wholly  delightful.  She  was  vestal  in  her  fidelity : 
he  was  daringly  disloyal  in  his  hourly  deeds. 
Nothing  sure  or  safe  can  be  postulated  of  human 
nature.  I  began  to  feel  very  certain,  a  few  months 
after  that  almost  epical  dinner,  that  marriages 
often  have  a  motive  and  a  meaning,  here  on  earth, 
which  the  shrewdest  of  us  might  spend  vast  useless 
effort  in  trying  to  fathom.  Titania,  as  we  all 
know,  wakes  up,  in  the  play,  and  declares: 
"  Me tli ought  I  was  enamoured  of  an  ass." 
But  as  yet  I  have  not  had  the  slightest  reason  to 
believe  that  my  nineteenth  century  Titania  has 
shown  the  least  sign  of  disenchantment. 


114  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


X. 

A  TYPICAL  NEW  YOKK  MAN. 

IT  is  possible  wholly  to  disapprove  of  a  person, 
and  yet  stoutly  to  like  him.  I  should  say  that 
this  antithesis  just  described  my  feelings  toward 
Mr.  Johnston  Gillespie.  Johnston  G-illespie, — what 
an  ostentatious  kind  of  strut  the  name  has  !  How 
it  seems  to  issue  from  the  lips  that  pronounce  it 
as  some  haughty  turkey-gobbler  might  leave  the 
aperture  of  some  fence !  and  how  much  personal- 
ity seems  to  dwell  behind  it,  whether  for  good  or 
evil! 

"Well,  in  fancy  at  least,  a  human  figure  dwells 
behind  it,  of  somewhat  medium  height  and  a  good 
deal  of  embonpoint,  especially  in  the  region  of  the 
waist.  Mr.  Gillespie  has  a  round  face,  with  a  sort 
of  sanguine  glaze  on  either  cheek,  which  I  am  sure 
would  not  be  there  if  his  taste  for  cold  water  were 
stronger  than  it  is.  He  has  honest  blue  eyes, 
which  I  have  seen  a  little  bloodshot  on  certain 
mornings,  and  a  good,  straight,  manly  nose.  But 
his  mustache  is  the  crowning  personal  glory  of 
Mr.  Johnston  Gillespie.  It  is  of  an  almost  bril- 
liantly yellow  tint,  and  its  hairs  are  so  wiry  in 
their  coarseness  that  you  can  clearly  distinguish 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  115 

each  separate  one.  It  is  a  mustache,  too,  of  sur- 
prising fidelity  to  the  countenance  which  it  adorns. 
Nothing  seems  to  disarray  it  or  discompose  it. 
When  wiped  by  the  silken  kerchief  with  which 
its  possessor  usually  wipes  it,  either  pear-shaped 
division  will  at  once  resume  its  place,  almost  in  the 
elastic  and  precise  way  of  an  unbent  whalebone. 
Mr.  Gillespie  has  an  extremely  small  foot,  of  which 
he  is  very  proud.  I  suspect  him  of  a  good  deal  of 
foppery,  after  a  certain  kind,  and  I  think  it  proba- 
ble that  his  beaming  and  dapper  boots  have  cost 
him  some  cogent  pangs.  His  hands  are  chubby, 
like  his  person ;  and  he  wears  several  rings,  one  of 
which  is  a  diamond  very  conspicuously  set,  and  of 
great  value,  for  Mr.  Johnston  Gillespie  is  exceed- 
ingly rich.  He  always  looks,  somehow,  whenever 
I  meet  him,  as  if  he  had  just  put  on  a  "  new  suit " 
for  the  first  time.  He  puts  on  a  good  many  new 
suits  in  the  course  of  a  year,  I  have  not  a  doubt ; 
bat  there  is  a  difference  between  the  man  and  his 
clothes  which  makes  you  observe  his  clothes,  very 
often,  before  you  notice  him,  in  a  way  that  no  sub- 
tlety of  description  could  adequately  explain.  I 
am  sure  that,  if  he  had  a  speck  on  the  flawless 
broadcloth  which  overspreads  his  spheroidal 
stomach,  one  would  espy  it  with  instantaneous 
speed;  and  when  he  stands  before  you,  clad  as 
smartly  as  possible,  you  seem  to  see  the  scissors  of 
some  adroit  tailor  ploughing  and  snipping  its  way 
as  the  chalked  outlines  and  hieroglyphs  of  the 
latest  fashion  have  indicated.  His  hat  is  always 


11.6  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

of  the  glossiest,  and  he  has  a  multiplicity  of  over- 
coats. But  no  matter  what  he  wears,  it  is  perpet- 
ually the  same  witli  him :  he  looks  endimanclie 
and  freshly  varnished.  He  wears  nothing  grace- 
fully, and  always  as  if  he  not  only  thought  you 
were  watching  how  it  became  him,  but  as  if  he 
rather  desired  that  you  should  so  watch. 

I  should  not  think  of  Mr.  Gillespie  as  being  an 
American,  but  rather  as  being  a  New-Yorker.  I 
don't  know  whether  he  ever  reflects  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  living  in  the  largest  city  in  the  United 
States ;  but  it  appears  singularly  appropriate  that 
he  should  live  there,  for  in  his  daily  life  and 
dealings  he  always  insists  upon  "  the  best  of  every- 
thing." I  am  certain  that  his  bootmaker  under- 
goes agonies  in  accommodating  those  slender  feet 
to  the  sanctioned  sheathings  of  patent  leather  or 
calfskin.  It  is  my  belief  that  his  tailor  has  borne 
from  him  vituperation  and  bullying;  for  he  can 
bully  his  inferiors  as  badly  as  the  worst  cad  will 
sometimes  do,  though  his  heart  is  large  and  his 
nature  intrinsically  generous.  His  charities,  too, 
are  profuse  though  careless,  and  suffer  from  his 
great  essential  fault,  —  ostentation. 

I  knew  him  at  college.  He  was  a  senior  when 
I  was  a  freshman,  and  we  were  both  members  of 
the  same  select  and  caste-conferring  secret  society. 
He  always  made  me  feel  that  I  was  two  good  classes 
below  him.  Afterward,  of  course,  all  this  changed, 
and  we  have  met  on  equal  terms.  And  yet  it  is 
hard  to  say  that  any  one  ever  meets  Johnston  Gil- 


A   TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  117 

lespie  on  equal  terms.  It  is  an  absolute  fact  that 
you  must  permit  him  to  patronize  you  in  order  to 
show  you  what  an  excellent  fellow  he  can  be.  I 
have  known  men  to  curl  their  lips  in  disdain  at 
him  behind  his  back,  but  I  never  knew  any  of 
these  to  refuse  him  a  smile  when  he  shook  their 
hands. 

His  career  is  peculiar.  Two  or  three  years  after 
leaving  college  he  lived  fast,  drank  hard,  and 
seriously  impaired  his  health.  Then,  recognizing 
the  folly  of  all  this,  he  genuinely  reformed  and 
spent  a  year  in  travelling  abroad.  I  saw  him  soon 
after  his  return.  He  invited  me  to  dine  at  Del- 
monico's.  There  was  no  one  except  ourselves,  but 
the  dinner  was  sumptuous,  —  a  sheer  waste,  in  fact, 
of  viands  and  wines. 

"America's  good  enough  for  me,"  he  declared 
during  our  repast.  "  If  you  leave  out  the  picture- 
galleries  and  the  churches,  I  don't  see  that  they  've 
got  anything  better  than  we  've  got.  All  Europe 's 
kind  of  a  big  graveyard,  anyway.  They  're  always 
showing  you  what  somebody 's  done  who 's  been 
dead  a  thousand  or  two  years.  Look  here,  Mark, 
I  don't  like  this  Burgundy,  do  you?  " 

"  I  think  it 's  good  Clos  de  Vougeot,  Johnsty,"  I 
said,  "and  as  soft  as  velvet." 

He  smiled  wisely  under  his  copious  yellow  mus- 
tache. "  Not  for  a  cent,"  he  said,  his  year  abroad 
no  more  having  taken  from  him  his  ineradicable 
native  slang  than  I  believe  twenty  such  years 
could  have  done.  "  No,  my  boy,  it 's  turned"  He 


118  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

snapped  his  fingers  loudly  to  attract  the  attention 
of  a  waiter.  The  waiter  not  hearing  this  sound 
(though  a  number  of  adjacent  diners  heard  it),  he 
pounded  with  mild  violence  upon  the  table,  using 
the  handle  of  his  fork.  A  waiter  rushed  to  him. 

"  You  ain't  my  waiter." 

"  No,  monsieur." 

"  Well,  then,  get  my  waiter.  I  want  him.  Un- 
derstand?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

When  "my  waiter"  came,  the  Burgundy  was 
anathematized.  The  waiter  presumed  to  defend 
its  quality,  and  was  met  with  a  volley  of  remarks 
like  these: 

"Look  here,  don't  you  talk  such  rot  to  me !  I 
know  good  wine  when  I  drink  it,  and  bad  too! 
What  do  you  take  me  for,  anyhow  ?  When  I  say 
a  wine  's  turned,  it 's  your  business  tc  listen,  an' 
not  shoot  your  mouth  off.  Bring  another  bottle, 
and  take  this  away  —  quick  as  you  can !  If  you 
ain't  careful,  my  fine  fellow,  I  '11  complain  of  you 
to  Mr.  Delmonico." 

The  new  wine  was  brought,  and  the  old  removed. 
While  this  substitution  was  in  process,  Gillespie 
made  several  growling  comments  on  the  filet,  which 
he  pronounced  over-done.  But  when  the  waiter 
brought  the  bill,  he  discovered  that  the  denounced 
Burgundy  had  not  been  charged  upon  it.  He 
insisted  that  the  bill  should  be  changed,  and  paid 
for  the  wine  which  he  had  recently  reviled.  He 
also  gave  the  waiter  a  much  larger  fee  than  usual. 


A   TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  119 

He  lias  an  immense  lurking  respect  for  "  swell 
society,"  as  lie  calls  it,  which  the  position  of  his 
dead  parents,  apart  from  his  great  inherited  wealth, 
would  easily  have  enabled  him  to  enter.  But  he 
never  "goes  out."  I  think  he  inwardly  feels  that 
the  restrictions  and  requirements  of  fashionable 
life  would  yoke  and  cramp  his  liberty-loving  spirit 
much  too  severely. 

"  I  envy  you,  Mark,"  he  once  said  to  me  in  his 
nasal  yet  cordial  voice.  "  You  can  put  on  a  swal- 
low-tail and  go  round,  night  after  night,  here,  there, 
everywhere,  among  all  the  stuck-up  girls  and  half- 
witted fops.  By !  I  don't  see  how  you  do  it, 

old  boy !  And  they  tell  me  you  lead  their  germans 
for  'em  too.  I  don't  dance — never  could;  but 
if  I  was  to  tackle  a  german  just  one  night,  I  'd 
have  'bout  ten  fights  on  my  hands  for  the  next 
day.  When  I  boss  things,  I  boss  'em.  I  would  n't 
have  these  young  simpletons  taking  extra  skips 
whenever  my  head  was  turned." 

"Nor  do  I,  Johnsty,"  I  said.  "I  rule  them  by 
kindness ;  but  I  rule  them." 

"So  you  do,"  he  exclaimed,  putting  a  hand  on 
my  shoulder.  "  I  've  heard  you  do,  and  I  believe 
it.  But  I  can't  rule  that  way.  The  kindness  is 
all  in  me,  I  guess  you  know  that;  but  the  devil  is 
in  showing  it  at  the  right  time.  .  .  .  Say !  got  any- 
thing to  do  to-morrow  evening?  .  .  .  Well,  then, 
come  and  dine  with  me  in  my  own  rooms  at  the 
Bolingbroke.  Party  of  six  —  all  good  fellows. 
You'll  make  the  seventh  —  lucky  number." 


120  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

It  is  forever  thus  with  him.  We  scarcely  ever 
meet  that  he  has  not  some  festal  proposition  of  the 
sort  to  make.  He  lavishes  hospitality  upon  his 
friends;  he  has  indeed  given  thousands  away  in 
the  form  of  nominal  loans  to  men  for  whom  pecu- 
niary assistance  was  a  positive  injury.  But,  alas !  I 
recollect  that  this  very  dinner  at  the  Bolingbroke 
turned  out  a  most  unfortunate  affair.  A  musical 
gentleman,  who  occupied  adjoining  apartments, 
chanced  to  hold  on  the  same  evening  a  private 
concert,  whose  programme  consisted  of  German 
compositions  which  our  host  esteemed  an  ear- 
splitting  outrage.  He  was  very  fond  of  Italian 
music;  he  thought  "Trovatore"  the  most  enchant- 
ing opera  in  all  the  world. 

As  the  fumes  of  his  own  excellent  champagne 
went  to  his  head,  he  determined  upon  having  the 
concert  silenced.  Yes,  he  would.  We  counselled 
him  eloquently  to  the  contrary,  but  without  avail. 
It  was  a  damned  shame :  it  spoiled  his  dinner,  and 
he  was  going  to  see  whether  he  'd  have  to  put  up 
with  it.  Mr.  X.,  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel, 
would  stand  by  him  :  they  'd  been  friends  for  ten 
years ;  and  X.  knew  he  paid  his  way,  and  was  n't 
going  to  be  bulldozed.  Nothing  would  do  but  we 
must  have  Mr.  X.  up.  Our  host  left  his  seat, 
and  strutted  about  with  an  absurd  pomposity, 
while  we  all  awkwardly  sipped  our  wines,  and 
some  of  us  (including  myself)  thought  the  blend- 
ing of  violin,  trombone,  and  piano,  in  the  next 
room,  a  rare  treat. 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  121 

Mr.  X.  appeared.  He  was  very  courteous, 
but  justifiably  firm.  He  refused  to  have  the  con- 
cert interfered  with  in  the  slightest  manner. 
Gillespie  stormed  and  fumed,  and  spoke  about  his 
rights  as  a  guest  in  the  hotel.  The  proprietor  em- 
ployed a  low  voice,  —  too  low  for  us  to  hear  much 
of  his  defence,  —  and  no  doubt  answered  by  pro- 
testing against  the  rights  of  his  other  guests  being 
interfered  with.  Gillespie  finally  sat  down  in  a 
white  heat,  and  our  dinner  was  a  complete  failure. 
Shortly  afterward  I  learned  that  he  had  changed 
his  quarters. 

He  is  very  fond  of  using  the  word  "  wrinkle  "  as 
expressive  of  preferment  in  a  hundred  matters  of 
purchase  and  general  patronage.  He  likes  to  tell 
you  that  he  "  knows  the  ropes  "  at  certain  cafe's  or 
restaurants,  that  the  employees  there  save  him  a 
private  bottle,  that  they  reserve  for  him  a  special 
dish  never  on  the  carte  du  jour,  that  a  particular 
brand  of  claret  or  species  of  liqueur  is  kept  solely 
for  the  tickling  of  his  own  and  his  friends'  palates. 
He  takes  keen  pleasure  in  receiving  a  note  from 
his  tailor  that  certain  goods  have  just  arrived  from 
"the  other  side  "  which  no  one  shall  see  till  he  has 
personally  examined  them ;  or  from  his  haber- 
dasher, stating  that  the  last  invention  in  collars  or 
neckties  at  present  awaits  his  critical  survey.  Of 
course,  he  is  very  often  cheated  by  these  politic 
tradespeople,  and  I  dare  say  he  knows  it;  but 
the  gratification  to  his  curious  vanity  remains 
quite  the  same.  If  he  had  been  a  New  York  poli- 


122  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

tician,  he  would  have  been  a  terribly  corrupt  one, 
he  is  so  fond  of  partiality  and  favoritism. 

There  are  some  men  whom,  in  the  usual  mean- 
ing of  that  word,  it  is  impossible  to  educate,  and 
Gillespie  is  one  of  them.  The  instruction  of  his 
professors  at  Columbia  has  all  fallen  completely 
flat  upon  him.  It  is  a  mystery  how  he  ever  trav- 
ersed the  full  collegiate  curriculum.  He  has  un- 
doubted mental  capacity,  but  it  is  entirely  of  the 
practical,  commercial,  arithmetical  sort.  He  has 
no  sense  of  the  charms  of  literature,  and  apparently 
no  respect  for  them.  He  said  to  me  one  evening, 
in  a  moment  of  confidence :  "  I  don't  see  what  the 
deuce  people  find  in  poetry  to  admire.  I  never 
can  understand  a  word  of  it,  unless  it's  something 
devilish  simple,  like  '  Sweet  By  and  By,'  or  funny, 
like  the  things  in  '  Pinafore.'  Of  course,  I  except 
Shakespeare;  he's  poetry,  but  then  he  lays  over 
all  the  rest." 

(It  is  extraordinary  how  often  we  hear  persons 
who  have  just  Gillespie's  feeling  toward  poetry 
make  precisely  this  same  point  with  regard  to 
Shakespeare.  The  truth  is,  that  they  are  simply 
ashamed  of  including  in  their  category  of  dislikes 
a  poet  whom  all  the  civilized  world  now  agrees  in 
worshipping.  There  are  hundreds,  thousands  of 
people,  loud  to-day  in  Shakespeare's  praise  whenever 
his  name  is  mentioned,  who  never  glance  into  his 
works,  who  have  not  read  half  his  plays,  and  who 
rather  avoid,  than  otherwise,  seeing  them  acted. 
But  the  scorpion-whip  of  public  opinion  must 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  123 

not  be  too  daringly  braved.  We  are  not  permitted 
to  pass  adverse  judgments  with  impunity  nowa- 
days on  the  subject  of  Shakespeare.  The  fashion 
is  profound  and  universal  homage — and  may  it 
last  for  many  centuries!  But  I  sometimes  ask 
myself  what  these  prudent  panegyrists  would  have 
had  to  say  about  the  great  William,  if  they  had 
lived  when  old  gossipy  Pepys  wrote  so  sneeringly 
of  him,  or  even  when  Oliver  Goldsmith,  in  "  The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  referred  to  him  almost  with 
contempt.) 

But  Gillespie  is  extremely  fond  of  the  drama. 
He  witnesses  nearly  all  the  plays  that  appear, 
good,  bad,  or  indifferent.  I  do  not  believe  he  has 
read  a  book  through  for  three  years ;  but  I  doubt 
if  he  has  missed,  during  that  time,  a  single  play  of 
ordinary  importance.  He  is  an  excellent  critic, 
from  a  popular  stand-point :  he  usually  takes  pains 
to  prophesy  that  a  play  will  or  will  not  "  draw," 
and  he  is  usually  right.  But  occasionally  he  for- 
gets, on  leaving  a  theatre,  to  mildly  express  the 
disgust  which  the  performance  has  inspired.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  putting  the  matter  with  more 
truth  to  state  that  he  forgets  the  theatre  is  not  his 
theatre,  and  the  play  produced  by  him  and  en- 
acted by  his  own  performers.  On  one  such  occa- 
sion, when  he  and  I  were  leaving  a  certain  very 
well  known  theatre  together,  he  spoke  with  high- 
voiced  displeasure. 

"  The  worst  rot  I  've  ever  seen  !  First  act  pala- 
ver, second  act  bosh,  and  third  milk  and  water." 


124  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Johnsty,"  I  whispered  to  him,  "please  recollect 
that  there  may  be  friends  of  the  manager  all  round 
you." 

"I  'm  a  friend  of  the  manager  myself,"  he  re- 
torted, as  if  my  admonition  were  the  most  unmer- 
ited thing  in  the  world.  "  I  've  known  him  for  an 
age." 

"  Well,  then,  there  may  be  friends  of  the  per- 
formers, who  "  — 

"  I  'm  as  good  a  friend  of  nearly  every  man  or 
woman  you  saw  to-night  as  any  they  've  got.  And 
I  guess  some  of  'em  ain't  got  much  reason  to  for- 
get it."  (This  was  one  of  the  few  allusions  I  ever 
heard  him  make  to  his  own  liberality.) 

"  Oh !  very  well,"  I  rejoined,  "  you  know  per- 
fectly why  this  sort  of  thing  is  n't  the  right  form 
in  leaving  a  theatre." 

But,  no:  he  could  not  understand  it — at  least, 
not  in  his  own  case.  For  some  time  afterward  his 
demeanor  toward  me  was  what  he  himself  would 
have  called  "huffy."  I  think  that  from  any  one 
but  a  friend  he  would  have  resented  my  very 
gentle  rebuke  as  an  impertinence.  His  own  con- 
duct, if  observed  in  another,  would  have  seemed 
unwarrantable.  Invested  with  the  filigree  of  his 
own  egotism,  he  could  perceive  nothing  wrong 
about  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  merely  did  not : 
I  mean  literally  that  he  could  not.  He  was  an 
exceptional  theatre-goer,  just  as  he  was  an  excep- 
tional diner,  an  exceptional  lodger  at  his  hotel,  an 
exceptional  being  generally.  The  ordinary  rules 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  125 

and  penalties  did  not  apply  to  him.  Once  more  to 
borrow  his  own  form  of  phrase,  he  had  "  the  inside 
track  "  everywhere.  I  would  occasionally  specu- 
late upon  the  possible  change  which  might  result 
in  him  from  the  loss  of  his  fortune.  As  it  is,  he 
pays  for  every  one  of  his  presumptions,  his  exac- 
tions, and  pays  double.  His  path  through  life  is 
paved  with  fees,  emoluments,  perquisites.  Even 
some  of  his  best  friends  regard  him  (though  un- 
consciously, perhaps)  through  the  delicate  mist 
rising  from  a  perfect  consomme,  or  the  smoke  of 
an  incomparable  Reina  Victoria.  And,  after  all, 
the  talk  about  New  York  millionnaires  possessing 
such  great  powers  of  entertainment  very  often  hits 
wide  of  the  truth.  With  our  enormous  expenses 
of  living,  a  man  must  be  twice  a  millionnaire,  if 
married,  and  dwelling  in  sumptuous  surroundings, 
to  regale  his  friends  en  gar$on  as  Johnston  Gilles- 
pie  does.  Well,  I  now  and  then  muse,  strip  John- 
ston Gillespie  of  his  power  to  do  this.  Bring  him 
face  to  face  with  the  world  as  it  really  exists,  —  its 
bare,  hard  facts,  demands,  necessities,  ungilded  and 
unembellished.  Bend  his  plump  and  prosperous 
shoulders  beneath  the  galling  wheel  of  actual 
economy.  Let  him  bargain  with  his  tailor  instead 
of  patronizing  that  tradesman.  Let  him  furtively 
weigh  the  chances  of  receiving  a  Delmonico  dinner 
instead  of  nonchalantly  extending  invitations  to 
one.  Let  him  calculate  the  amount  on  deposit  at 
his  bank  instead  of  dashing  off  a  cheque  without 
the  least  thought  of  making  an  over-draft.  What 


126  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

a  lesson  it  would  teach  him, — this  dauntless  auto- 
crat, this  typical  New-Yorker,  the  product  of  a 
great  city  in  a  great  country,  whose  most  crying 
fault  is  its  worship  of  the  money  he  would  then 
have  lost ! 

I  should  like  to  make  him  poor  for  two  or  three 
days,  and  then  reinstate  him  in  his  old  opulence. 
I  am  too  fond  of  him  to  wish  him  any  longer  or 
severer  punishment  than  this.  And  there  would 
be  a  certain  experimental  gratification  in  watching 
how  he  bore  his  adversity,  —  what  sunken  qualities 
of  good  or  evil  it  called  to  the  surface  of  his  char- 
acter, what  optimism  or  pessimism,  what  energy  or 
despair,  what  resignation  or  revolt,  what  serenity 
or  disturbance,  it  might  have  the  effect  of  develop- 
ing. 

We  often  speak  of  people  as  purse-proud.  A 
good  many  men  in  New  York — the  most  unrefined 
city,  in  proportion  to  its  size  and  civilization,  that 
has  probably  ever  existed  —  strongly  resemble 
Johnston  Gillespie.  That  is  why  I  have  termed 
him  a  typical  New-Yorker.  And  these  others, 
like  or  unlike  him  in  many  minor  details  of  tem- 
perament or  disposition,  do  not  deserve  the  term 
of  purse-proud  any  more  than  he  does.  They  are 
simply  reliant  upon  their  purses,  —  a  very  different 
condition.  They  have  learned  to  mistake  their 
wealth  for  themselves,  —  an  easy  enough  matter 
here,  where  it  confers  almost  every  degree  of 
human  importance.  They  have  lost  the  discrimi- 
nating tact  to  perceive  just  where  they  end  and 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  MAN.  127 

their  bank  accounts  begin.  Kings,  however 
petty,  have  always  had  their  "  divine  rights  "  to 
steady  themselves  against.  But  such  pettier 
princelings  as  Johnston  Gillespie,  failing  in  any 
similar  convenient  refuge,  grow  to  rate  as  a  conse- 
quence of  their  own  personality  the  court  so  amply 
paid  them.  They  forget  the  terrible  social  momen- 
tum of  riches,  and  the  equally  terrible  paralysis 
of  poverty.  They  are  like  men  sailing  in  a  mag- 
nificent ocean-steamer,  for  whom  even  the  great 
surges  have  a  toss,  a  flash,  a  glory,  and  indeed  an 
amusement,  not  felt  by  the  inmates  of  smaller 
craft. 

But  I  don't  think  there  is  any  very  serious  chance 
that  Johnston  Gillespie  will  ever  lose  his  money. 
It  is  remarkably  well  invested.  If  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, he  has  got  a  "  wrinkle  "  there  too,  in  the 
way  of  political  influence  or  of  some  noted  capi- 
talist's vigilant  friendship.  It  would  be  almost 
extraordinary  if  this  were  not  the  case.  Yes,  it 
is  extremely  likely  that  for  years  to  come,  my 
friend,  with  all  his  faults  and  all  his  virtues,  will 
remain  a  typical  New  York  man. 


128  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XL 

THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "OH,  MY  !" 

THERE  are  some  people  of  whom  one  can  never 
think  without  having  a  special  dominant  trait 
instantly  suggest  itself.  I  believe  it  is  the  great 
Taine  who  says,  in  speaking  of  Shakespeare's  gift 
of  character-drawing,  that  the  people  made  to  live 
by  his  dramatic  contemporaries  always  stand  for 
a  single  quality,  as  revenge,  hate,  veracity,  menda- 
city, and  so  on  through  the  whole  gamut  of  vices, 
virtues,  foibles,  sins,  or  peccadilloes;  while  the 
one  master  wrought  complex  personalities,  in 
which  fault  and  excellence,  flaw  and  purity,  were 
wondrously  and  humanly  interblended.  From 
this  point  of  view,  it  is  not  my  opinion  regarding 
Mr.  Josiah  Spicer  that  Shakespeare  would  have 
cared  very  much  about  handling  him.  I  think 
the  master  would  have  passed  him  over  to  Ben 
Jonson,  or  some  lesser  luminary,  without  a  mur- 
mur. The  moment  you  saw  him  or  recollected  him 
you  were  reminded  of  a  single  fact,  — his  excessive 
modesty.  It  seemed,  indeed,  a  sort  of  boldness, 
because  it  so  mantled  him,  so  distinguished  him, 
so  emphasized  him. 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "Oil,  MY!"  120 

He  was  not  more  than  two  and  thirty  when  I 
first  met  him.  He  went  to  all  the  places  where  I 
went.  His  tough  prosaic  name,  Josiah  Spicer, 
was  an  old  one  in  New  York,  as  old  names  go 
here.  There  had  surely  been  five  anterior  Josiah 
Spicers,  and  since  the  first  had  made  himself  impor- 
tant, well  over  a  century  ago,  in  mercantile  deal- 
ings, all  the  others  had  done  something,  or  been 
something,  preservative  of  the  family  prestige. 
There  was  not,  however,  any  prestige  at  all  about 
my  Josiah.  The  money  which  usually  went  with 
the  name  had  not  gone  with  his.  It  had  drifted 
off  into  a  channel  of  somewhat  remote  cousins, 
and  the  existent  Josiah  had  to  get  along  on  a 
rather  moderate  bank  clerkship.  I  have  always 
thought  this  a  decided  pity.  He  would  have 
taken  care  of  a  fortune  so  conscientiously  and 
neatly,  if  he  had  had  one !  He  took  care  of  him- 
self so  conscientiously  and  neatly !  He  was  quite 
short  of  stature,  and  had  a  long,  pale,  beardless  face, 
with  a  mustache  that  was  a  little  timid,  downy, 
flaxen  curve.  He  dressed  with  great  precision, 
which,  after  all,  was  not  shiningly  to  his  credit,  as 
there  was  really  so  little  of  him  to  dress.  His 
shoulders  were  so  slight  and  drooping,  his  chest 
was  so  narrow  and  puny,  his  figure  was  so  spare 
and  fragile,  that  you  could  not  help  fancying  his 
tailor  and  shirtmaker  must  reap  solid  profit  from 
their  limited  proportions. 

If  he  was  not  liked  in  society,  he  was  certainly 
not  disliked  there.  It  might  be  recorded  of  him 


130  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

that  he  was  most  genially  and  indulgently  tol- 
erated. The  haughtiest  young  belle  would  not 
have  dreamed  of  snubbing  him,  though  her  adorers 
were  a  score  and  her  bouquets  legion.  He  would 
never  have  put  himself  in  an  attitude  to  be 
snubbed.  At  parties  he  was  always  a  nimble, 
bland,  obliging  convenience.  All  that  he  appar- 
ently wanted  to  do  in  the  gay  world  was  to  hand 
an  opportune  ice,  to  slip  forward  a  desired  chair, 
to  propel  his  lithe,  alert  little  shape  through  vora- 
cious crowds  at  the  supper-table,  and  bring  calmly, 
securely  but  never  triumphantly,  a  glass  of  iced 
water,  perhaps,  to  some  parched  maiden.  He  filled 
a  place,  and  he  filled  it  with  consummate  fidelity 
and  thoroughness.  He  accepted  social  life  not 
merely  as  a  pleasure,  but  as  a  duty.  He  was  very 
much  in  earnest  about  it ;  he  had  not  a  shadow  of 
the  ordinary  affectations  which  one  meets ;  he  knew 
everybody,  everybody's  grandfather,  everybody's 
lack  of  a  grandfather,  everybody's  claim,  rank, 
status.  But  he  was  not  at  all  snobbish :  he  simply 
took  the  fashionable  New  York  world  as  he  found 
it,  and  danced  with  it,  talked  inanities  to  it,  waited 
011  it,  fed  it,  carried  its  fans,  called  its  carriages, 
enjoyed  it,  respected  it,  and  in  his  way  supported, 
befriended,  ameliorated  it.  I  used  sometimes  to 
watch  the  numerous  bored  people  about  Josiah 
(we  always  called  him  "  Josiah  "  in  full,  as  if  by 
a  sort  of  harmless  ironic  pleasantry),  and  ask  my- 
self whether,  with  all  his  insignificance,  absence 
of  repose,  unaristocratic  good  humor  and  willing- 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "OH,  MY!"  131 

ness -to  let  people  make  use  of  him,  he  was  not 
having  decidedly  the  best  time  of  it ;  whether,  in 
short,  among  all  the  futile  maze  and  babble  and 
masquerade  of  the  thing,  he  had  not  been  lucky 
enough  to  find  the  one  true  talisman  of  hearty 
enjoyment,  the  illusive  yet  tangible  secret  de 
bonheur. 

I  always  liked  to  have  him  near  me  when  I  led 
the  cotillon,  He  would  give  me  little  practical 
hints  that  were  of  no  mean  worth ;  he  would  aid  me, 
by  a  wise  whisper,  in  the  generalship  of  my  flying 
artillery,  my  light  infantry,  my  phalanxes  of  rose- 
bud damsels  and  Columbia  College  striplings.  He 
nearly  always  danced  with  an  uncompassionated 
wall-flower.  He  had  not  income  enough  to  engage 
a  partner  beforehand  and  send  the  imperative 
bouquet.  But  I  don't  think  he  cared.  It  was  part 
of  his  phenomenal  modesty  and  humility  not  to 
care. 

That  hard,  cold,  handsome  Anne  Trinitychapel, 
with  a  smile  like  lit  steel  and  a  wit  like  the  stab  of 
a  needle,  once  spoke  of  Josiah  to  me  as  "  the  young 
gentleman  who  says  '  Oh,  my  ! ' :  I  bit  my  lip  with 
vexation,  being  a  sworn  ally  of  Josiah's ;  but  it  hit 
him  off  so  aptly  and  shrewdly  that  its  cruel  echo 
never  left  -my  brain.  Anne  Trinitychapel  had 
sketched  him  enduringly  for  me  by  a  single 
Ilogarthian  stroke. 

He  certainly  did  say  "  Oh,  my ! "  a  great  deal.  He 
exclaimed  it,  he  murmured  it,  he  prattled  it,  he 
even  looked  it  when  he  did  not  say  it.  His  voice 


132  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

was  naturally  high  and  thin :  no  other  voice  could 
have  been  expected  from  so  meagre  a  personnel.  I 
grew  to  be  so  haunted  by  this  caustic  little  epigram 
concerning  him  that  one  evening  in  Lent,  when  he 
dropped  into  my  room  with  me  after  a  small  dinner 
at  the  Jerseyflats',  I  was  on  the  verge  of  telling 
Josiah  frankly  to  guard  against  his  beloved  voca- 
tive. 

But  I  soon  discovered,  this  same  evening,  that 
he  had  become  unwontedly  melancholy,  and  soon 
learned  the  cause  of  his  depression.  This  put  all 
thought  of  his  "  Oh,  mys  I  "  out  of  my  head ;  and  I 
even  forgot  his  peculiarity  while  he  began,  in 
familiar  though  subdued  falsetto : 

"  Oh,  my  I  Mark,  it  's  dreadful !  Yes,  it 's  per- 
fectly dreadful  I  The  older  I  grow,  the  more  I  get 
to  think  how  dreadful  it  is!  I  mean  about  my 
never  having  been  abroad,  you  know." 

"Never  having  been  abroad,  Josiah?"  I  re- 
peated. "Well,  really,  I  don't  see  anything  so 
very  dreadful  in  it,  do  you  ?  " 

"Do  I?"  Here  Josiah  gave  a  little  sneeze,  for 
we  were  sitting  rather  close  together,  and  the 
smoke  of  my  cigar  took  a  course  straight  into  his 
minute  pink  nostrils.  He  hates  tobacco,  though 
he  says  he  does  n't.  "  Oh,  my !  "  he  pursued  with 
extreme  seriousness,  "  it  seems  to  follow  me,  Mark, 
everywhere.  Yes,  it  does.  I  never  meet  any 
stranger,  and  talk  ten  minutes,  that  I  don't  dread 
some  reference  to  Paris,  or  London,  or  Vienna.  I 
don't  mind  Vienna  so  much,  because  lots  of 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "Oil,  MY!"  133 

Americans,  you  know,  have  n't  been  there.  But 
London  and  Paris,  —  everybody  has  seen  them. 
Everybody  except  me !  And  I  'm  always  afraid 
they  're  going  to  find  out  the  truth,  and  they  nearly 
always  do.  Then  they  open  their  eyes  and  stare 
at  me.  '  What ! '  they  say,  c  never  been ! '  And  I 
have  to  answer, '  No,  but  I  hope  to  go  soon.'  And 
that  sounds  so  lame  and  silly !  And  they  always 
pity  me.  I  'm  sure  that  nice  Lizzie  Bleecker, 
whom  I  took  in  to  dinner  to-night,  pitied  me. 
And,  oh,  my  !  Mark,  I  'm  so  tired  of  being  pitied ! 
I  must  go.  I  must  go  as  soon  as  I  can  manage." 

This  unaccustomed  lamentation  from  Josiah 
evoked  my  own  pity.  I  felt  very  much  like  offer- 
ing to  loan  him  funds,  and  would  gladly  have  done 
so  if  I  had  not  been  sure  of  the  lifted  hand,  and 
the  shocked  start,  and  the  fluttered  "  Oh,  my !  "  for 
I  well  knew  that  Josiah  would  just  as  soon  take  a 
plunge  off  a  house-top  as  dive  into  the  hazardous 
regions  of  debt. 

As  it  was,  his  absurd  and  yet  serious  cause  of 
unhappiness  was  one  which  I  could  understand 
and  appreciate.  Of  the  many  kinds  of  snobbery 
rampant  within  our  brave  republic,  that  of  per- 
petually referring  to  foreign  travels  can  by  no 
means  be  ranked  ,as  least  odious.  Poor  Josiah 
was  one  of  its  victims.  He  had  long  suffered  in 
silence,  and  at  length  his  misery  had  burst  its 
bonds.  He  had  had  every  country  of  Europe 
more  or  less  in  coalition  against  him  for  years. 
Among  the  people  whom  he  met,  I  can  perfectly 


134  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

comprehend  the  isolation  from  which  he  suffered. 
In  some  obscure  Western  town,  where  the  trav- 
elled resident  is  exceptional,  and  to  mention  the 
National  Gallery  or  the  Louvre  is  to  throw  an 
awed  silence  over  rustic  tea-tables,  his  position 
might  have  been  wholly  different.  But  here  in 
New  York  he  was  engirt  by  a  dreary  invisible  soli- 
tude, not  to  be  measured  by  any  mechanical 
process,  and  yet  as  wide  as  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
which  he  had  never  crossed.  Subsequent  ques- 
tioning of  Josiah  resulted  in  the  most  harrowing 
disclosures.  Naturally  of  a  very  honest  turn,  he 
had  been  tempted  by  mauvaise  honte  into  painful 
hypocrisies.  He  was  very  much  ashamed  of 
them,  but  he  had  employed  them,  none  the  less. 
More  than  once  he  had  concealed  for  a  whole  even- 
ing the  fact  of  his  never  having  been  abroad,  when 
the  person  with  whom  he  talked  had  evidently  a 
contrary  idea,  and  had  several  times  clearly  indi- 
cated as  much  by  distinct  statements ;  as,  for 
example,  by  saying  during  the  narration  of  some 
story  which  dealt  with  Paris,  "You  remember 
how  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines  runs  close  by 
the  Madeleine  ?  "  or,  "  You  of  course  recollect,  Mr. 
Spicer,  how  dry  one  can  keep  one's  self  under  those 
arcades  of  the  Palais  Royal  on  a  rainy  day?'* 
And  to  remarks  like  these  poor  Josiah  owned  that 
he  had  more  than  once  responded  with  a  palpable 
"  Yes."  I  felt  the  situation  to  be  damning,  of 
course. 
"  Oh,  my ! "  Josiah  now  went  on.  "  The  worst 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WIIO  SAYS  "Oil,  MY!"  135 

part  of  it,  Mark,  is  that  my  remorse  will  not  pre- 
vent me  from  doing  it  again." 

"  That  is  absolutely  horrible,  Josiah,"  I  said  un- 
der my  mustache.  "  I  don't  know  what  ought  to  be 
done  with  you.  I  think  I  shall  get  a  little  placard 
and  pin  it  secretly  upon  you  behind.  The  pla- 
card shall  read :  4  This  young  man  has  never  been 
abroad,  and,  if  he  says  that  he  has  been,  people 
are  warned  against  him  as  a  shameful  nctionist.' ' 

"  Oh,  my !  "  said  Josiah  with  a  shudder,  as  if  he 
really  expected  me  to  carry  out  this  threat.  "  But 
I  must  go,  Mark,"  he  continued.  "  I  don't  see  just 
how  I  can  manage  it  at  present,  but  I  must  go." 

He  did  manage  it,  however,  the  next  spring. 
His  employers  granted  him  a  vacation,  and  his 
past  economies  granted  him  a  five-hundred-dollar 
tour  with  Cook's  tickets  everywhere.  I  burst  into 
an  irrepressible  laugh  when  he  told  me  about 
the  Cook's  tickets.  Knowing  Josiah's  affability 
and  companionability  as  I  did,  it  was  so  easy  to 
imagine  him  on  terms  of  expansive  intimacy  with 
about  twenty  shabby-genteel  tourists,  flying  over 
the  Continent  in  their  company,  and  perhaps  being 
willingly  imposed  upon  and  made  a  commodity  of 
by  all  their  feminine  members.  I  thought  regret- 
fully of  how  pleasant  it  would  be  to  take  him 
decently  through  Europe,  and  hear  his  enthusi- 
astic "  Oh,  mys ! "  in  Trafalgar  Spuare,  or  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  or  on  the  Piazza  San  Marco.  But 
as  it  was,  I  knew  just  what  fate  lay  in  store  for 
him.  He  would  be  whirled  through  Antwerp, 


136  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

scarcely  getting  his  breath  before  he  had  "  done  " 
the  tomb  of  Rubens  and  the  "  Descent  from  the 
Cross;"  then  he  would  be  whirled  again  through 
Brussels,  till  the  lovely  Sainte  Gudule,  with  its 
pillars  and  cloisters  and  tracery,  was  all  a  sculptu- 
resque blur  to  him,  and  the  Wiertz  gallery  and 
the  Muse'e  Royal  were  pictorial  shadows;  and 
then  he  would  perhaps  dash  through  Switzerland, 
seeing  Chamouni  for  two  hours,  Interlaken  for 
one,  Lucerne  for  fifty  minutes,  and  various  other 
charming  spots  for  periods  of  lesser  duration. 
That  is  what  would  happen  to  poor  little  Josiah, 
for  that  is  the  way  the  Cook's  tourists  usually 
rush  things.  I  am  not  writing  anything  against 
them  as  an  idea,  an  enterprise,  a  civilizing  factor, 
and  I  think  it  much  better  to  go  that  way  than 
not  to  go  at  all.  But  there  are  superior  ways  of 
going,  and  I  felt  sorry  enough  that  Josiah  could 
not  have  experienced  one  of  these. 

His  method  of  travel  was  divulged  to  me  as  a 
prodigious  secret.  "  Oh,  my  !  Mark,"  he  said  on  the 
eve  of  his  departure,  "  don't  tell  a  single  soul,  or 
it  will  be  perfectly  dreadful !  "  And  I  did  not 
tell  a  single  soul.  I  respected  little  Josiah's  se- 
cret as  though  it  were  the  precious  enjoinder  of  a 
d/ing  kinsman.  His  absence  lasted  nearly  till 
autumn  ;  and  when  anybody  asked  me  concerning 
him,  I  said,  "  Oh,  Josiah's  gone  abroad,  you  know," 
with  as  grand  an  air  as  if  he  had  had  the  captain's 
stateroom  on  the  "Alaska"  all  to  himself,  and  two 
body-servants  on  the  same  steamer  besides. 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "Oil,  MY!"  137 

It  was  delightful  to  consider  that  the  poor  little 
fellow's  woes  would  soon  be  over,  —  that  all  his 
pathetic  embarrassments  and  concealments  and 
make-shifts  would  shortly  terminate  in  a  calm  con- 
sciousness of  having  "been  abroad."  Henceforth 
the  thorn  was  to  be  removed  from  his  flesh,  the 
rankling  dart  from  his  bosom.  He  would  have 
been  abroad  when  he  returned  to  us.  If  people 
spoke  to  him  about  Norway  and  the  midnight  sun, 
he  could  shake  his  head,  and  answer  with  respecta- 
ble frankness :  "  No  —  a  —  I  did  n't  get  as  far  as 
that."  If  they  tried  to  blind  him  with  the  sands 
of  Egypt,  or  prod  him  with  the  toe  of  the  Italian 
boot,  he  could  candidly  admit  their  right  to  do 
either.  But  London,  Paris,  even  Switzerland,  — 
these  were  to  make  him  proof  against  their  polite 
yet  galling  surprise  forever  afterwards. 

He  returned  in  early  September,  and  I  was  al- 
most the  first  to  shake  his  slim,  cool  little  hand. 
When  I  asked  him  how  he  had  enjoyed  himself,  it 
was  just  as  I  had  expected.  There  was  immedi- 
ately a  torrent  of  "  Oh,  mys  !  "  He  showed  me  the 
inevitable  packet  of  photographs,  — the  Strasbourg 
Cathedral,  and  the  Jungfrau,  and  the  Arc  de  Tri- 
omphe.  I  examined  them  all  with  religious  inter- 
est, and  did  not  say  anything  about  their  being 
purchasable  in  Broadway,  or  even  Sixth  Avenue. 
I  was  genuinely  glad  at  Josiah's  gladness,  and 
thankful  that  the  weight  of  his  distress  had  been 
removed.  He  showed  me  on  the  map  of  Europe 
the  course  "  they  "  had  taken,  and  I  confess  that 


138  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

this  portion  of  the  map  has  never  seemed  to  me 
quite  the  same  since.  It  has  always  been  frescoed, 
from  Liverpool  circuitously  to  Paris,  with  a  tiny 
scroll  of  "  Oh,  mys !  " 

During  the  next  winter  Josiah  and  I  often  met. 
He  was  quite  unchanged  in  his  pretty  civilities,  his 
miniature  knight-errantries.  He  gave  himself  no 
airs  because  he  had  "been  abroad."  He  had 
been  a  passionate  pilgrim,  but  he  made  no  parade 
of  his  enthusiasm.  He  handed  ices  and  he  held 
fans  with  the  same  loyalty,  agility,  and  decorum  as 
of  old.  And  yet  I  clearly  perceived,  after  a  while, 
that  little  Josiah  was  not  happy. 

I  observed  him,  I  watched  him,  and  finally,  be- 
ing determined  to  pierce  the  root  of  his  new 
dissatisfaction,  I  roundly  questioned  him  one 
evening  concerning  it. 

"  Josiah,"  I  said  solemnly,  "  something  weighs 
on  your  mind.  Are  you  in  love  ?  Can  it  be  that 
you  are  in  love  ?  If  so,  tell  me  the  worst." 

We  were  standing  together  at  the  corner  of  his 
street.  It  was  a  late  hour  of  the  night ;  we  had 
been  to  a  protracted  dance  at  the  Macdougals'  in 
Washington  Square.  Josiah  looked  up  at  me  — 
he  always  had  to  look  up  at  me  when  we  stood  to- 
gether —  startledly  in  the  obscure  lamplight. 

"  No,  Mark,"  he  said,  "  I  'm  not  in  love.  Oh,  no  ! 
it's  not  that.  But  what  makes  you  —  you  think 
it 's  any  tiling  ?  " 

"  I  certainly  do  think  it 's  something,  Josiah," 
was  my  reply.  His  own  had  pricked  curiosity. 


THE  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO  SAYS  "OH,  MY!"  139 

"  A  little  while  ago  you  were  wretched  because 
you  'd  never  been  abroad.  And  now  " — 

He  suddenly  laid  his  hand  upon  my  arm.  He 
looked  up  into  my  eyes  with  what  in  anybody  else 
I  should  have  considered  a  terrible  gravity. 

"  And  now,  Mark,"  he  murmured,  "  I  feel  that  I 
—  I  have  been  only  once  I " 

"  Only  once  ?  "  I  repeated  confusedly.  "  Of 
course  you  have.  Well,  what  of  it?  Who  said 
you  had  been  twice  ?  " 

Josiah  had  drooped  his  head,  and  he  now  som- 
brely shook  it.  "  The  fact  is,  Mark,  that  I  thought 
if  I  'd  been  I  'd  been,  and  there  would  be  an  end. 
But  nothing  of  the  sort.  Always  before,  people 
were  tormenting  me  with  their  amazement  that  I 
had  n't  been;  but  now  they  're  tormenting  me 
with  their  amazement  that  I  've  been  only  once. 
Oh,  my !  it 's  too  dreadful !  I  thought  I  could  talk 
about  Piccadilly,  and  the  view  from  the  Rigi,  and 
the  Avenue  de  1'Opera,  to  my  heart's  content. 
But  there's  something — I  don't  know  what  it 
is  —  that  makes  them  always  ask,  after  I  've 
spoken  just  a  few  minutes,  'Was  this  your  first 
time,  Mr.  Spicer?'  For  a  little  while  I  did  n't 
mind.  I  used  to  say  '  yes  '  quite  carelessly.  But 
I  've  discovered  that  when  I  say  it  was  my  first 
time,  they  look  at  me  with  just  as  much  pity  and 
just  as  much  astonishment  as  when  I  used  to  con- 
fess that  I  had  n't  been  at  all.  And  now  I  've 
grown  to  dread  4Was  this  your  first  time,  Mr. 
Spicer?'  quite  as  much  as  I  used  to  dread 


140  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

1  Have  n't  you  ever  been  ? '  .  .  .  Oh,  my !  I  don't  see 
why  they  can't  leave  that  other  question  alone, 
do  you,  Mark  ?  If  I  've  been,  I  've  been  ;  and  what 
earthly  difference  ought  it  to  make  whether  I  've 
been  only  once  or  a  dozen  times  ?  " 

"  What  earthly  difference  ought  it  to  make, 
indeed ! "  I  mused,  after  I  had  left  poor  little 
Josiah,  with  this  his  new  lamentation  ringing 
oddly  in  my  ears. 

We  are  a  great  republic  —  or  declare  ourselves 
to  be.  Washington  founded  us  :  Lincoln  died  for 
us.  Had  not  the  wail  of  Josiah  Spicer  a  very 
subtle  and  satirical  meaning  ?  Why  do  we  think 
and  talk  so  much  about  "  the  other  side,"  from 
which  (as  we  affirm)  we  have  broken  away  so 
gloriously,  and  to  which  (as  we  also  affirm)  we 
compare  so  handsomely?  We  victimize  little 
Josiah.  Let  us  be  careful  how  we  stultify  our- 
selves. If  democracy  means  anything,  it  means 
consistency  and  self-respect.  Rome  never  bowed 
to  Greece  till  after  .she  had  conquered  it.  In  St. 
James's  and  Kensington  and  Chelsea  they  don't 
make  it  a  cachet  of  respectability  to  have  been  to 
44  the  States."  There  is  a  good  deal  in  so  valuing 
ourselves  that  others  will  value  us. 

"Might  we  not  learn,"  I  asked  myself  as  I 
strolled  homeward  through  the  late  New  York 
darkness,  "  a  rather  wholesome  lesson,  if  we  chose, 
from  the  wail  of  the  persecuted  little  gentleman 
who  says  4Oh,  my'?" 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       141 


XII. 

THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK. 

IF  there  is  any  living  woman  with  whom,  on 
ordinary  principles  of  judgment,  I  should  not 
connect  the  idea  of  despondency  or  cynicism,  it  is 
Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker.  True,  I  recollect  the 
time  (I  was  then  a  mere  youth)  when  she  was 
the  target  of  many  scornful  little  arrows  from 
society's  replete  quiver.  Even  when  I  first 
began  to  go  about,  her  ostracism  was  by  no  means 
an  ended  matter.  There  were  still  certain  "  good 
houses"  that  refused  to  receive  her.  Stories  of 
her  pertinacious  pushing  were  still  current.  Echoes 
of  the  old  jeering  laughter  yet  lived  and  rever- 
berated. She  had  not  merely  sought  to  pass  the 
gates :  hundreds  had  done  that,  and  could  still  do 
it  with  success.  She  had  fixed  her  eyes  upon  a 
high  place  in  the  citadel  itself.  She  wanted  to 
reign  and  not  serve.  She  wanted  to  climb,  and 
climb  high.  Her  intent  soon  transpiring,  opposi- 
tion had  met  her  at  every  step.  It  might  pictur- 
esquely be  said  that  she  used  the  alpenstock  of 
resolve  to  cross  the  icy  glaciers  of  pride  and  the 
deep  crevasses  of  snobbery.  But  it  had  been  an 
alpenstock  of  gold :  she  was  very  rich.  If  she  had 


142  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

not  so  soon  shown  her  hand  in  the  game,  I  think 
she  might  have  won  it  more  easily ;  for  when  has 
money,  with  a  little  decent  breeding  behind  it, 
failed  to  find  favor  among  our  sham  New  York 
noblesse?  But  for  some  reason  this  lady  preferred 
to  show  her  hand.  She  was  not  at  all  ashamed  of 
her  struggle :  it  was  almost  as  if  she  wanted  to 
have  it  made  very  public,  thus  heightening  her  tri- 
umph when  this  should  arrive,  and  giving  herself  a 
sort  of  historic  note  in  the  future  unwritten  annals 
of  our  metropolitan  life. 

Her  money  had  not  been  that  of  her  dead  hus- 
band. Mr.  Brummagem  Baker,  as  far  as  I  could 
learn,  had  been  a  cad  and  a  sot,  and  had  led  her  a 
wretched  life  somewhere  in  the  West,  until  finally 
his  death  freed  her  far  more  desirably  than  the 
divorce  which  she  is  said  to  have  been  on  the 
verge  of  securing.  And  very  soon  afterward  the 
stars  themselves  had  fallen  into  her  threadbare  lap. 
It  must  have  been  a  very  threadbare  lap  indeed,  for 
she  had  just  got  an  ill-paid  post-office  appointment 
in  an  Ohio  town,  when  the  news  reached  her  that 
a  California  uncle  whom  she  had  never  seen  had 
died,  leaving  her  his  share  of  a  silver-mine.  She 
sold  out  her  share  rather  promptly,  and  got  three 
millions  of  dollars  by  the  sale.  She  might,  it  was 
declared,  have  reaped  triple  this  sum  if  she  had 
kept  her  possession  for  a  few  years  longer.  But 
three  round  millions  were  all  she  wanted,  and  she 
had  no  wish  to  dwell  in  the  West.  Her  ambition, 
leaping  into  active  life  with  her  sudden  prosperity, 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.        143 

tended  exclusively  eastward.  And  eastward  her 
course  of  empire  took  its  way. 

She  was  then  considered  by  no  means  a  hand- 
some woman,  though  she  must  undoubtedly  have 
had  what  is  called  "a  presence."  For  a  year  or 
two  she  lived  quietly,  observing  keenly.  She 
seems  to  have  been  born  with  a  vast  natural  aris- 
tocratic impulse.  In  this  country  of  ours,  which 
is  a  complex  reproduction,  as  regards  its  people,  of 
every  nationality  and  every  personality  under  the 
sun,  you  often  find  individual  traits  and  qualities 
manifest  which  would  appear  wholly  without  pre- 
cedent. But  heredity  accounts  for  everything  in 
character,  and  the  knowledge  of  a  great-grand- 
father is  a  rare  species  of  information  through- 
out our  monstrous  masses;  the  instinct  to  shine 
among  patricians  is  no  more  inconsistent  with  birth 
iii  a  log-cabin  than  is  a  salient  aptitude  for  making 
shoes  or  rearing  cattle. 

Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker's  first  attempt  at  enter- 
ing society  in  New  York  was  a  magnificent  defeat. 
She  must  then  have  been  about  five  and  thirty. 
She  had  rented  a  roomy  mansion  in  the  lower  part 
of  Fifth  Avenue.  She  had  heard  (I  shall  not  give 
the  names  of  her  male  counsellors  and  advisers, 
though  some  of  them  were  enough  dans  le  monde 
to  have  known  better)  that  money  and  assurance 
would  carry  everything,  and  that  all  she  need  do 
was  to  throw  open  her  doors  and  invite  the  proper 
sorts  of  people.  She  did  not  know  any  of  the 
proper  sorts  of  people.  She  did  not  know  any  sort 


144  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

of  people  whatever,  except  a  few  pleasure-hunting 
club-men  whom  she  had  fallen  in  with,  Heaven 
knows  how,  and  who  used  to  give  her  thirsty  ears 
delicious  bits  of  gossip  about  the  select  world 
where  she  longed  to  shine.  Report  declared  that 
she  borrowed  a  long  list  of  names  from  Brown,  the 
now  deceased  sexton  of  Grace  Church,  and  in  this 
Avay  learned  whom  to  invite ;  but  I  do  not  believe 
that  or  similar  stories  of  poor,  corpulent,  eccentric 
Brown.  I  do  not  believe  that  with  all  his  oddities 
of  deportment,  his  extraordinary  impudence,  his 
remarkable  candor,  this  man,  who  for  years  was 
spoiled  and  petted  by  our  so-called  "  old  families," 
and  made  to  believe  that  none  of  their  entertain- 
ments were  complete  without  his  bulky  form  sat  in 
their  doorways  and  shrieked  bullyingly  to  the  ter- 
rified coachmen  of  their  guests,  ever  so  forgot  or 
so  cheapened  his  position,  such  as  it  was.  "  Brown's 
lists  "  used  to  be  a  good  deal  talked  about  in  other 
days, — his  "  list  of  dancing-men,"  his  "  list  of  heavy 
swells,"  his  list  of  the  second,  third,  or  fourth  rate 
Amphitryons.  But  they  are  in  one  respect  like 
the  Junius  letters  :  you  could  never  meet  a  person 
who  had  seen  them,  signed,  in  the  original  manu- 
script. 

However,  some  one  gave  Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker 
a  list.  It  must  have  been  very  copious ;  it  included 
"  everybody,"  from  the  inevitable  Spuytenduyvils, 
Poughkeepsies,  and  Amsterdams,  to  the  last  Smiths, 
Smitherses,  or  Smithsons  who  had  succeeded  in 
being  considered  des  notres. 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       145 

The  evening  of  the  ball  -arrived.  Brown  had 
been  secured.  The  spacious  house  (it  belonged  to 
the  Gramercys,  or  the  Maclisons,  or  some  such 
family,  who  were  then  in  Europe)  was  beautifully 
decorated  with  flowers.  Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker, 
gowned  with  splendor,  stood  to  receive  her  guests. 
She  had  had  no  acceptances  and  no  regrets,  for 
her  festivity  was  an  "At  Home,"  and  hence  no 
reply  was  expected.  A  little  after  ten  o'clock  her 
guests  began  to  arrive.  They  arrived  in  consid- 
erable and  increasing  numbers.  Mrs.  Baker  bowed 
and  smiled  at  her  gracious  best.  The  concourse 
augmented ;  the  rooms  became  at  least  fairly  filled. 
But  an  awful  fact  at  length  dawned  upon  the 
mind  of  the  bland  hostess.  Her  ball  was  almost 
wholly  composed  of  gentlemen !  The  men  had  all 
come,  but  with  exasperatingly  rare  exceptions  they 
had  left  their  wives  at  home  —  or  their  wives  had 
preferred  to  remain  at  home. 

It  was  a  severe  blow.  If  such  an  affair  should 
occur  now,  a  hundred  newspapers  would  have 
printed  accounts  of  it  from  our  present  ubiquitous 
"New  York  correspondent."  But  then  matters 
were  different.  The  "  society  column,"  in  all  its 
classic  grace  and  taste,  was  yet  to  be  reared  amid 
modern  journalism.  Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker's 
next  step  was  to  purchase  a  very  attractive  villa 
on  the  Newport  Cliffs.  She  drove  in  charming 
equipages  through  Bellevue  Avenue,  when  the 
afternoon  light  slanted  over  the  sea,  and  the 
breezes  freshened  with  a  marine  coolness.  She 


146  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

must  have  looked  very  impressive,  leaning  back  in 
her  landau,  with  her  arched  nose  and  her  imperial 
poise  of  head,  and  her  large,  creamy  eyelids.  But 
no  one  bowed  to  her  except  a  few  of  the  men. 
She  fought  desperately  that  year,  but  without 
avail.  Every  door  was  closed  against  her. 

"  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  she  thought,  as  the  autumn 
was  coming  on.  She  had  not  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree lost  courage.  She  understood  perfectly  that 
she  had  flown  her  kite  so  very  high  in  the  begin- 
ning as  to  make  other  kites,  which  had  serenely 
floated  aloft  for  a  long  time,  both  astonished  and 
indignant.  She  had  inarched  upon  the  enemy 
boldly,  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets.  And  now  she 
must  take  the  punishment  for  her  frank  presump- 
tion. Strategy  and  deft  manoeuvre  might  have 
been  forgiven  her;  but  the  bearing  of  one  who 
demands,  and  the  step  of  one  who  conquers,  were 
quite  another  matter. 

"  What  shall  I  do  next  ?  "  she  thought.  She 
had  soon  decided  on  what  to  do,  and  she  did  it. 

All  this  happened  long  before  my  time,  as  the 
phrase  goes.  When  I  knew  Mrs.  Baker,  she  was  a 
woman  of  stately  maturity  ("stately  maturity" 
expresses  her  age  so  much  better  than  "  fifty-five  " 
or  "fifty-seven"  could  do),  and  she  was  every- 
where accepted  as  a  reigning  social  dignitary.  I 
have  always  thought  her  a  very  brilliant  and  de- 
lightful woman.  I  "  took  to  her  "  from  the  first 
hour  of  our  acquaintance.  In  appearance  she 
was  faded:  you  could  judge  her  past  bloom  by  the 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       147 

tarnish  time  had  put  upon  it  now.  It  had  never 
been  a  winsome  or  fascinating  bloom.  It  had  had 
the  demureness  and  all  the  coldness  of  a  dahlia, 
never  the  delicate  intoxication  of  a  rose.  When 
her  tall,  well-moulded  figure  first  dawned  upon 
me,  and  I  looked  into  the  hard,  bright  black  of 
her  eyes,  noted  the  flowing  yet  inflexible  line  of 
her  lips,  observed  the  strongly  intellectual  devel- 
opment at  her  temples,  I  told  myself  that  here 
was  a  woman  who  had  never  known  the  first  thrill 
of  real  passion.  Power  had  been  her  god,  and 
power  of  a  certain  sort  only.  And  I  was  right. 

We  became  excellent  friends.  She  was  just  the 
sort  of  friend  I  needed,  too,  at  the  beginning  of 
my  social  career.  She  saw  through  her  own  sex 
as  one  sees  through  glass,  and  could  tell  their 
foibles  and  their  faults  as  one  might  count  the 
stones  at  the  bottom  of  a  very  clear  spring.  I 
will  not  speak  of  the  golden  warnings  and  wise 
hints  that  she  gave  me.  It  was  like  getting 
"points  "  from  some  shrewd  Wall  Street  operator. 
I  hope  that  I  listened  with  a  due  respect  for  my 
precious  opportunities,  since  Mrs.  Baker  was  not 
wont  to  distribute  them  broadcast.  Whether  I 
have  duly  profited  by  them  or  no,  I  leave  to  those 
who  have  watched  with  any  interest  the  rising  of 
my  fashionable  star,  as  Disraeli  might  have  said  in 
his  earlier  novels. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  Mrs.  Baker  aston- 
ished me  by  the  depth  of  weariness  and  even  dis- 
gust which  she  betrayed.  To  the  world  at  large 


148  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

she  was  the  bright  personification  of  contentment, 
self-satisfaction,  success.  To  me  and  a  few  others 
she  revealed  an  irony  of  fatigue  and  disillusion. 
Her  bitterness  made  me  almost  shudder  when  I 
was  first  brought  face  to  face  with  it.  It  was 
like  finding  a  nest  of  rats  behind  a  sumptuous 
velvet  arras.  We  were  seated  in  her  almost  regal 
drawing-rooms  at  the  time.  We  had  been  talk- 
ing about  some  charitable  amateur  theatricals,  of 
which  she  was  one  of  the  foremost  lady  patronesses, 
and  I  had  consented  (Oh,  dire  and  never-repeated 
experience !)  to  act  as  secretary.  We  had  dropped 
business  for  the  present.  We  had  drifted  into  a 
sort  of  semi-philosophic  train  of  conversational 
gossip.  We  were  asking  each  other  what,  after  all, 
the  lives  and  aims  of  Mrs.  This  and  Mr.  That  (peo- 
ple whom  we  both  knew  well)  had  amounted  to. 
We  were  saying  very  uncharitable  things,  but 
perhaps  a  good  many  true  things  as  well.  If  our 
friends  had  been  behind  the  door,  they  would  no 
doubt  have  hated  us.  But  I  am  sure  they  would 
have  secretly  admitted,  deep  down  beyond  the  fer- 
ment of  their  wrath,  that  some  of  our  charges 
were  full  of  justice. 

"  Well,"  suddenly  exclaimed  Mrs.  Brummagem 
Baker,  "  and  what  has  my  life  amounted  to  ? 
Have  you  ever  thought  at  all  on  that  subject?" 

I  looked  at  her  with  surprise.  "  I  've  thought  a 
good  deal  on  the  subject,"  I  soon  replied,  "  and 
my  conclusion  is  that  you  are  one  of  the  most 
notably  successful  women  of  your  period." 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.        149 

She  gave  a  light  laugh.  She  always  had  a 
crisply  epigrammatic  way  of  speaking  on  every 
subject.  They  had  said  years  ago  that  her  voice 
was  nasal  and  "American."  (It  is  astonishing 
how  fond  certain  Americans  are  of  turning  that 
national  adjective  into  a  contemptuous  signifi- 
cance.) But  there  was  no  nasal  tone  in  Mrs. 
Baker's  voice  now.  She  spoke,  indeed,  with  a 
slightly  foreign  accent  —  or  at  least  with  a  short, 
tripping  treatment  of  her  syllables,  and  an  occa- 
sional upward  inflection  at  the  end  of  a  sentence. 
She  had  a  breezy,  indolent  manner,  too,  as  if 
nothing  that  she  heard  or  saw  were  quite  impor- 
tant enough  to  be  serious  about.  Her  style  was 
decidedly  French ;  it  was,  moreover,  a  trifle  Eng- 
lish now  and  then ;  but  it  was  not  ever  in  the 
slightest  degree  American. 

"  You  're  so  good  to  say  that ! "  she  declared.  "  I 
suppose  everybody  thinks  me  successful.  What 
an  odious  little  word,  by  the  way !  It  implies 
straining  and  struggling.  I  detest  it." 

"  Then  I  am  very  sorry  to  have  used  it,"  was 
my  reply. 

She  changed  the  subject  soon  afterward,  arid  I 
understood  that  she  was  disinclined  to  talk  further 
regarding  herself.  But  repeatedly,  in  other  suc- 
ceeding interviews,  she  would  drop  certain  innu- 
endoes regarding  her  own  mental  ennui.  At  last 
I  said  to  her  : 

"Frankly,  Mrs.  Baker,  are  you  not  satisfied 
with  your  career  ?  " 


150  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Satisfied  ?  "  she  murmured,  looking  downward 
and  seeming  to  consider  the  word.  Then  she 
raised  her  eyes.  "  No,"  she  said  slowly,  looking 
at  me  with  great  intentness,  "  I  am  prodigiously 
^satisfied." 

There  had  been  a  multitudinous  dinner  that 
evening  at  the  Lexingtons'  in  Lexington  Avenue. 
The  Lexingtons  always  give  their  dinners  in  the 
most  ridiculous  way.  No  one  who  has  ever 
wanted  to  "take  in"  anybody  else  has  ever, 
even  by  accident,  managed  to  do  so.  Everybody 
is  placed  uncongenially  next  everybody  else.  If  I 
had  an  arch-enemy  of  the  feminine  sex,  and  had 
accepted  a  dinner  at  the  Lexingtons',  I  should  not 
be  surprised  to  find  a  card  on  the  hall  table  (as  I 
squeezed  down  my  chapeau  bras  and  got  the  foot- 
man to  disarray  me  of  my  wraps)  giving  the  name 
of  this  girl  or  matron  as  my  future  companion 
through  ten  or  twelve  tedious  courses.  As  it 
chanced  that  evening,  I  had  to  seat  myself  beside 
Minnie  Maidenlane,  who  is  at  once  the  most 
amiable  and  vapid  of  young  virgins.  I  had 
escaped  from  the  men  as  soon  as  possible  after 
coffee  and  cigars  were  served,  and  had  joined  the 
ladies  in  that  exquisite  front  room  of  the  Lexing- 
tons', where,  as  everyone  knows,  they  have  a  hun- 
dren  good  things  in  the  way  of  ornament,  and 
some  pictures  that  it  needs  almost  the  purse  of 
Fortunio  to  hang  on  their  nice  walls,  decorated 
by  the  aesthetic  Marcotte.  I  found  Mrs.  Baker 
near  a  big  palm,  which  towered  in  front  of  an 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       151 

alcove  window  where  there  were  tufted  cushions 
piled  quite  orientally.  We  were  seated  here  to- 
gether as  she  gave  me  her  last  recorded  response. 

"  You,  of  all  women  living,"  I  said  to  her  mean- 
ingly (it  was  so  pleasant  to  say  something  mean- 
ingly to  some  one,  after  those  hollow  inanities  with 
Minnie  Maidenlane  ! ),  should  be  the  last  to  speak 
of  your  life  with  dissatisfaction." 

"How  droll  you  are!"  was  the  answer,  given 
with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders.  "  I  know  you  to 
have  ideas,  to  be  outside  of  this  dreary  fashionable 
rabble,  —  for  it  is  nothing  else,  —  and  yet  you  now 
and  then  seem  to  be  conventionally  a  part  of  it. 
The  older  I  grow,  Mark  Manhattan  (and  I  am 
growing  very  old,  if  the  lamentations  of  my  hair- 
dresser are  at  all  credible),  I  find  myself  more  and 
more  convinced  of  how  I  have  wasted  my  life." 

"  Wasted  your  life  ! "  I  ejaculated. 

"Yes,  just  what  I  tell  you,  dear  boy,  wasted 
my  life.  Let  me  be  autobiographical ;  let  me  dip 
into  a  real  confession.  What  did  I  attempt  to  do? 
.  .  .  Oh,  you  need  not  look  as  if  you  had  not  heard 
all  about  my  past.  It  has  been  cried  from  the 
house-tops,  and  you  have  surely  heard  many  of  the 
shouts.  I  made  a  grand,  silly  attempt  to  be  — 
what  I  am  now,  a  New  York  leader.  If  I  had  de- 
voted my  brains  (and  you  know  very  well  that  I 
have  brains,  just  as  /know  that  you  have)  to  some- 
thing profitable,  sensible,  intellectual,  truly  woman- 
ly, I  might  have  accomplished  results  to  be  proud 
of.  But  what  did  I  do  ?  I  flung  everything  away 


152  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

on  a  mere  craze,  —  a  flimsy  caprice.  What  is  it 
to  be  what  I  now  am  ?  I  have  gained  it,  but  what 
have  I  gained?  Ashes  and  dust!  Do  you  not  sup- 
pose that  I  feel  this  ?  The  nonsense  never  seemed 
to  me  nonsense  till  I  had  grasped  it  in  my  hand. 
Then  I  realized  what  a  bauble  my  coveted  jewel 
really  was.  To  reign  in  New  York  society !  Bah ! 
To  be  a  queen  with  a  crown  of  pasteboard !  To  have 
a  kingdom  of  snobs !  To  mean  an  unrepublican 
product  of  a  country  that  has  tried  to  be  a  genuine 
republic  and  has  failed !  To  have  it  said  of  me  that 
I  was  a  great  lady  in  a  land  whose  great  ladies 
are  laughed  at  abroad  as  mere  silly  copies  of  Euro- 
pean aristocracy!  Oh,  this  is  what  it  all  comes 
to !  You  need  n't  look  polite,  Mark  Manhattan. 
I  don't  know  anyone  who  can  look  polite  and 
sympathetic,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  better  than 
you  can  if  you  wish.  What  I  tell  you  is  perfectly 
true.  I  was  a  fool,  and  I  see  it  all  now  as  I  never 
dreamed  of  seeing  it  before.  But  there  is  my 
wretched  trouble !  —  I  see  it  all  now,  when  I  am 
too  old  to  cast  it  aside  and  begin  anew.  With  my 
money,  I  'd  give  a  million  to  be  twenty  years 
younger.  Just  twenty  years,  —  that  would  suit  me 
perfectly.  I  've  wasted  my  life,  as  I  told  you.  If  I  'd 
done  the  same  that  I  have  done,  either  in  London  or 
Paris,  I  might  have  had  a  real  salon  by  this  time ; 
I  might  have  been  a  chatelaine,  with  Gladstone, 
and  Browning,  and  Ruskin,  and  Froude,  and  Hux- 
ley, and  Daudet,  and  FranQois  Coppde,  and  even 
Victor  Hugo,  for  my  guests  and  friends.  I  had  it 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       158 

in  me  to  do  this  sort  of  thing ;  but  the  immense 
mistake  was  that  I  came  to  New  York  from  the 
West,  and  caught  the  absurd  fever  of  wanting 
to  be  a  grande  dame  here.  And  how  pitifully 
I  struggled  —  the  more  shame  for  me !  Oh,  I 
don't  mind  telling  you  just  how  pitifully  I  did 
struggle  in  this  big  little  New  York,  this  village 
with  over  two  millions  of  inhabitants!  Why, 
when  I  had  my  cottage  on  the  Newport  Cliffs, 
Mrs.  Northriver  Hastings  had  a  cottage  next  me. 
I  wanted  so  much  to  have  Mrs.  Northriver 
Hastings  —  you  know  that  little  woman  with 
lemon-colored  eyelashes,  who  always  looks  at  you 
as  if  she  were  going  to  sneeze  T— I  wanted  so 
much  to  have  Mrs.  Northriver  Hastings  notice  me 
and  call  on  me,  that  I  did  the  most  ludicrous  thing ! 
I  can  hardly  realize  now  having  done  it,  but  I  did 
it,  nevertheless.  I  had  heard  that  Mrs.  Hastings 
was  passionately  fond  of  dogs.  I  got  poor  old 
Sam  Hackensack,  who  died  last  year,  to  find  me 
the  loveliest  white  setter  in  the  world.  He  found 
it.  That  dog,  with  his  charming  curled  hair,  like 
spun  silk,  used  to  follow  me  out  on  the  lawn  when- 
ever I  felt  certain  Mrs.  Hastings  was  there,  airing 
herself,  with  her  parasol  and  her  long  gloves  and 
her  mighty  self-importance.  My  dog  was  very 
obedient.  Just  when  he  had  got  within  a  few 
yards  of  Mrs.  Hastings,  I  would  give  a  faint  chirp, 
and  he  would  come  bounding  to  my  side.  It  made 
Mrs.  Hastings  almost  insane,  she  wanted  to  pat 
him  so.  But  1  wanted  her  to  come  and  make 


154  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

friends  with  me.  'It  was  'Love  me,  love  my  dog.' 
But  she  loved  my  dog,  and  would  not  love  me. 
That  little  ruse  failed,  as  every  other  had  done, 
though  I  was  never  one  to  try  such  tricks,  as  a 
rule.  .  .  .  Well,  I  only  confide  to  you  that  event  as 
an  instance  of  my  folly.  ...  By  and  by  I  got  more 
sensible.  I  managed  it  in  a  different  way." 

Mrs.  Baker  paused.  I  waited,  thinking  she 
might  wish  to  resume  her  phenomenal  confession. 
Then  I  said  quite  gently,  — 

"  You  managed  it.  Of  course  you  managed  it. 
But  —  how  did  you  manage  it  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  know  ?  "  she  briskly  resumed.  "  Did 
you  never  hear  ?  " 

I  shook  my  head.  "No,"  I  answered.  "Remem- 
ber that  when  I  swam  into  your  ken  you  had  man- 
aged it." 

She  broke  into  a  kind  of  musing  laugh.  "  So  I 
had,"  she  replied.  "  After  I  found  that  New  York 
would  not  notice  me,  I  —  well,  I  conceived  an 
idea." 

"And  your  idea?" 

"Was  to  invade  America  with  a  coalition  of 
European  powers.  Oh,  don't  smile !  I  assure  you 
that  I  did  it.  I  went  abroad.  I  went  first  to 
London.  I  brought  a  few  letters  from  some  of  the 
men  here  —  you  know,  perhaps,  that  from  the  first 
a  good  many  of  the  men  were  on  my  side.  I 
took  a  house  in  Piccadilly  during  the  season.  I 
drove  rather  nicely  in  Hyde  Park.  I  was  noticed. 
The  Marquis  of  Middlesex  —  an  immense  London 


THE  LADY  WHO  INVADED  NEW  YORK.       155 

swell  —  got  somebody  who  knew  me  to  present 
him.  That  made  me.  The  marquis  presented 
other  friends  of  his.  The  women  took  me  up.  I 
was  an  American,  but  you  know  very  well  that  in 
London  an  American  means  as  much  a  Jones  or  a 
Brown  as  it  means  a  Knickerbocker  or  a  Manhat- 
tan. After  I  was  thoroughly  lancee  there,  I  went 
to  Paris.  An  earl  crossed  with  me  from  Newhaven 
to  Dieppe.  The  earl  was  in  love  with  me,  I  think 
—  but  I  forget,  it  is  so  long  ago  now.  How- 
ever, he  presented  me  to  some  French  cousins  of 
his  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  —  stupid  hole 
that  it  is !  ...  I  returned  to  New  York  stamped 
as  the  friend,  the  intimate,  of  foreign  nobility.  I 
invaded  New  York  with  an  Anglo-French  alliance. 
I  conquered  at  once.  I  had  not  been  here  two  days, 
before  Mrs.  Zero,  who  had  known  the  Duchess 
of  Cavendish,  and  Mrs.  Blank,  who  had  met  the 
Countess  of  Berkeley,  called  upon  me  with  effusive 
protestations  of  cordiality.  And  in  this  way  I 
managed  it.  But  how  horrid  to  look  back  upon 
this  mode  of  managing  it !  How  horrid  to  think 
that  I  ever  managed  it  at  all ! " 

"  You  invaded  New  York,"  I  said  with  a  smile, 
"  and  conquered." 

"Conquered!  And  what  is  my  victory?  To 
reign  in  a  society  of  adventurers,  upstarts,  pre- 
tenders, humbugs,  —  all  as  bad  as  I  am,  if  not 
worse." 

I  frowned  at  this.  "  You  are  far  too  severe  on 
New  York  society,"  I  said.  "  If  you  invaded  New 


156  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

York,  as  you  admit,  then  you  should  also  show  the 
mercy  of  a  conqueror." 

Mrs.  Brummagem  Baker  laughed.  Her  dark 
mood  was  ended.  "  Here  comes  the  man  with  tea," 
she  said.  "Go  and  get  me  a  cup  —  and  mind, only 
one  lump  of  sugar.  When  you  have  got  it,  I 
promise  to  speak  well  of  New  York  society  —  to 
tell  you  the  good  things  that  I  know  about  it. 
That  is,  provided  the  tea  suits  my  taste." 

I  brought  the  tea.  But  I  am  afraid,  from  results, 
that  it  did  not  suit  the  taste  of  Mrs.  Brummagem 
Baker,  —  the  lady  who  had  invaded  New  York. 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  157 


XIII. 

A   NEPHEW    OF    MINE. 

"  I  SEE  that  your  Bradford  is  beginning  to  go 
out,"  I  said  to  my  sister  Pauline  one  day. 

"  Beginning,  my  dear  Mark !  "  was  the  answer. 
"  Why,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  he  could  not  be  more 
immersed  in  all  kinds  of  social  engagements  than 
he  is  at  present." 

My  sister  said  this  with  a  certain  melancholy 
pride,  as  though  her  son's  new  importance  entailed 
his  filial  alienation,  while  at  the  same  time  it  dealt 
its  distinct  self-gratulating  thrill. 

Pauline  is  Mrs.  Scoharie  Putnam,  and  married 
the  dead  millionnaire  who  was  her  husband  when 
I  had  reached  the  age  of  about  nine.  I  remember 
her  wedding  at  Grace  Church  so  well  and  yet  so 
oddly !  I  can  see  her  standing  at  the  side  of  an 
elderly  gentleman  who  looked  as  wiry  as  a  spider, 
and  had  a  little  nebulous  beard  of  grayish  pink, 
with  eyelashes  of  the  same  color.  Scoharie  Put- 
nam was  a  great  match  for  her,  or  any  girl,  as  I 
recollect  clearly  comprehending  even  then ;  for, 
besides  having  a  very  large  fortune,  he  was  either 
a  Scoharie  or  a  Putnam — I  was  not  quite  sure 
precisely  which  he  was,  in  the  sense  of  high  ances- 


158  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

tral  distinction,  and  no  doubt  compromised  with 
my  own  ignorance  by  splendidly  ranking  him  as 
a  little  of  both.  There  stood  Pauline  at  his  side, 
in  the  big  dusky  church  with  its  painted  windows, 
wearing  the  densely  flowered,  costly  heirloom  of  a 
veil  in  which  her  own  mother  had  been  married. 
How  fresh  and  modest  and  lovely  she  looked  then ! 
And,  ah,  me !  how  twenty  years  or  so  have  played 
the  mischief  with  her  roses  arid  lilies !  But  that 
marriage  morning  of  hers  was  my  first  realization 
of  what  Balzac,  the  arch-cynic,  somewhere  calls  "  a 
faulty  institution  tempered  by  affection."  The 
whole  sweet  and  stately  ceremonial  makes  a  charm- 
ing picture  in  my  memory,  —  one  that  is  framed 
with  macaroons,  and  viewed  through  a  yellow  mist 
of  lemonade.  I  was  painfully  though  not  danger- 
ously ill  on  the  day  which  followed  Pauline's  wed- 
ding. Good  heavens !  how  these  trifles  mingle 
with  larger  and  sterner  events,  as  we  sweep  a 
retrospective  eye  over  our  lives !  How  many  of 
that  blithe  patrician  wedding-party  are  gone  to-day 
where  it  has  been  said  there  is  neither  marrying 
nor  giving  in  marriage  !  For  how  many  years  has 
Scoharie  Putnam,  the  elderly  bridegroom,  been 
laid  away  there  in  the  family  vault  of  St.  MarkV 
in-the-Bowery !  And  here  am  I,  actually  making 
a  little  chronicle  of  the  son  and  heir  who  reigns  in 
his  stead !  I  sometimes  think  that  this  panorama 
we  call  life  used  to  move  along  on  much  slower 
rollers  than  now.  Perhaps  the  first  perception 
that  we  are  getting  to  be  middle-aged  —  that  the 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  159 

vie  de  g argon  should  end,  and  something  more 
serious  begin — is  embodied  in  a  desire  to  pluck 
old  Time  by  the  forelock  or  scythe-handle,  which- 
ever it  may  be,  and  assure  him  that  he  is  really  in 
a  devil  of  a  hurry.  Only  yesterday,  at  my  dressing- 
mirror,  I  discovered  seven  new,  assertive,  unpro- 
pitiable  gray  hairs.  Alas  !  it  seems  fitting  enough 
that  I  should  write  this  avuncular  memoir  about  a 
grown-up  nephew.  Soon  enough,  no  doubt,  I  shall 
play,  in  the  large,  whirling  drama  of  things,  a  still 
maturer  rdle. 

My  sister  had  been  right.  Bradford  Putnam 
was  certainly  immersed  in  social  engagements.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  any  one  more  actively  dans 
le  mouvement.  He  is,  at  the  present  writing,  just 
three  and  twenty  years  old.  He  has  a  delicate, 
downy  mustache,  whose  color  may  be  called  an 
hereditary  pink.  He  is  very  slender,  though  not 
ill  made.  He  has  passed  about  five  years  of  his 
life  in  England,  where  he  made  an  attempt  to 
enter  Cambridge,  and  signally  failed.  At  the  age 
of  twenty  he  was  graduated,  very  low  in  his  class, 
from  Harvard.  Rejoining  his  mother  in  New  York 
at  the  age  of  one  and  twenty,  he  promptly  became 
a  young  gentleman  of  fashion.  He  has  continued 
so  ever  since. 

Notwithstanding  his  residence  in  England,  he  is 
not  at  all  English.  I  mean  in  speech,  deportment, 
personality.  In  dress  he  is  English  throughout. 
His  collar  is  rigid,  lofty,  lustrous,  uncompromising. 
It  is  strange  how  the  soft,  beardless  cheek  which 


160  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

comes  into  incessant  contact  with  this  pure  and 
stern  ridge  of  linen,  ever  manages  to  preserve  itself 
so  nicely  unscathed.  His  clothes  fit  him  as  if  they 
were  kid  instead  of  cloth.  They  are  always  ironed 
before  he  puts  them  on ;  and  his  tall  silk  hat  has  a 
preternatural  gloss,  created  by  some  deft  combina- 
tion of  vaseline  and  ironing,  which  is  a  secret  of 
vital  importance  between  himself  and  his  valet.  I 
think  that  if  you  saw  upon  his  vestments  a  bit  of 
thread  as  large  as  the  nail  of  your  smallest  finger, 
you  would  be  sure  to  observe  it.  I  should  fear  the 
charge  of  exaggeration  if  I  were  to  record  the 
number  of  his  overcoats.  In  this  respect  he  is  pre- 
pared for  every  varying  mood  of  our  mutable 
American  winter.  From  saffron-drab  with  huge 
pearl  buttons,  to  bottle-green  with  a  hint  of  seal- 
skin at  the  edges  to  show  the  luxurious  lining 
inside,  they  run  through  many  grades  of  hue  and 
pattern.  It  is  much  the  same  thing  with  his  mul- 
tiplicity of  boots,  gloves,  shirt-studs,  and  scarf-pins. 
He  is  a  child  of  opulence  and  of  prosperous, 
capricious,  high-stepping  comfort.  He  has  his 
victoria,  his  brougham,  his  dog-cart;  he  has  at 
least  eight  horses  at  his  command,  for  driving  or 
riding.  Whenever  you  see  him,  you  notice  some- 
thing that  is  different  about  his  immediate  sur- 
rounding from  what  3^011  noticed  when  he  last 
entered  into  your  consciousness ;  if  it  is  not  a  new 
horse,  it  is  a  new  groom  ;  if  it  is  not  a  new  watch- 
chain,  it  is  a  new  cigar-case ;  if  it  is  not  a  new  cane, 
it  is  a  new  pocket-book ;  and  so  on,  through  vistas, 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  161 

as  one  might  say,  of  sumptuous  and  inexhaustible 
novelty.  On  all  articles  of  a  purely  personal  sort 
he  is  fond  of  having  some  costly  cachet,  —  his  mon- 
ogram in  diamonds,  if  the  bauble  permits ;  or  in 
twisted  gold  or  silver,  if  taste  thus  decrees ;  or  in 
some  more  subtle  device  of  jewelry,  wrought  both 
to  startle  and  to  delight. 

His  manner  is  reticence  and  imperturbability  in 
their  supreme  forms.  I  am  aware  of  a  word, 
recently  coined,  which  fills,  as  the  struggling  news- 
paper would  say,  "  a  needed  want."  This  word,  of 
contested  etymology,  though  widely  accepted  sig- 
nificance, does  not  apply  to  my  nephew.  Bradford, 
with  all  his  circumambient  elegance  and  modish- 
ness,  is  emphatically  not  a  "dude."  The  dude 
prattles;  Bradford  is  a  sphinx  of  reserve.  The 
dude  pauses  decorously  upon  the  threshold  of  vice; 
Bradford  suggests,  with  a  sort  of  dark  dignity,  the 
most  comprehensive  yet  languid  corruption.  The 
dude  owns  to  fresh,  untried  realms  of  sensation ; 
Bradford  has,  in  this  respect,  traversed  the  known 
globe,  and  awaits  a  new  sea  to  explore,  a  new 
isthmus  to  discover.  The  dude  has  unkindled 
passions;  Bradford  is  an  extinct  volcano,  with  a 
crater  that  now  and  then  lifts  to  air  no  stronger 
sign  of  its  being  than  a  lazy  curl  of  smoke, — 
cigarette-smoke,  if  you  will.  The  dude  has  hopes, 
even  ambitions;  Bradford  has  nothing  but  a 
fatigued  experience  and  a  spacious  despair.  The 
dude  still  enjoys  his  youth ;  Bradford  dimly  recol- 
lects that  once,  at  some  remote  epoch,  h,e  was 
young. 


162  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

He  is  not  yet  a  regular  member  of  the  Metro- 
politan Club,  but  was  made,  after  his  return  from 
Harvard,  a  six-months'  visitor  at  my  own  favorite 
social  resort.  Being  a  good  many  years  his  senior, 
and  also  secretly  feeling  the  mortification  that  I 
was  his  uncle,  I  once  or  twice  addressed  him  with 
wrhat  I  believed  all  proper  and  needful  courtesy. 
His  unruffled  composure,  his  weary  self-possession, 
on  each  occasion,  quite  disarrayed  me.  I  was  pre- 
pared, of  course,  to  be  genial,  effusive,  even  mildly 
affectionate.  I  remember  so  well  the  first  time 
that  I  met  him  in  one  of  the  doorways  of  the 
Metropolitan.  We  exchanged  greetings.  His 
mother  had  told  me  that  he  was  in  town.  It 
seemed  so  queer  to  think  of  him  at  all  as  grown 
up !  Some  one  pointed  him  out  to  me ;  I  had  not 
seen  him  since  he  was  a  little  boy,  and  acted 
accordingly. 

"Braddy,"  I  said,  holding  his  hand,  "you  are 
like  your  father,  but "  — 

He  interrupted  me.  I  think  he  did  it,  in  some 
peculiar  way,  by  means  of  his  eyelids.  I  was  con- 
scious of  their  quietly  haughty  droop  before  I 
became  aware  of  his  voice  (placid,  a  little  nasal, 
much  more  American  than  English  of  intonation), 
while  he  said : 

"  Look  here !  Just  drop  that.  I  'm  not  called 
'Braddy.'  Have  n't  been  for  a  hundred  years, 
more  or  less." 

"  But  I  always  used  "  —  I  began. 

He  tapped  me  on  the  shoulder.    "  Of  course  you 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  163 

always  used,  old  man,"  he  said  with  a  paralyzing 
smile. 

"Uncle"  would  not  have  been  agreeable.  I 
was  prepared,  I  may  even  state  that  I  had  nerved 
myself,  to  meet  "uncle."  But  "old  man"  wholly 
disarmed  me  by  its  piercing  suggestiveness. 

"I  hear  you  're  no  end  of  a  chap  among  the 
swells,"  Bradford  now  continued.  "You  must  get 
me  about — that's  a  good  fellow.  I  should  like  to 
get  about  a  little.  Boston 's  pretty  slow ;  I  hope 
there  "s  more  go  in  New  York.  Excuse  me.  Let 
me  look  at  your  stick." 

I  mutely  handed  him  my  cane.  "  Good  stick," 
he  said,  examining  it — and  then  he  stopped  short, 
handing  it  back  to  me.  "  Beg  pardon,"  he  went 
on.  "  Thought  it  was  a  real  blackthorn.  'Tisn't. 
Dined,  old  chap?" 

"  I  have  just  dined,"  I  said. 

Bradford  blew  some  cigarette-smoke,  and  con- 
cealed a  yawn  —  or  tried  to  do  so  —  behind  its 
transient  cloud. 

"Have  n't  dined  yet  myself.  Dinner  just  an- 
nounced. Hope  I'll  see  more  of  you.  Be  here 
later?" 

"  Possibly,"  I  articulated. 

My  nephew  then  placidly  vanished.  One  or  two 
more  meetings  like  this  were  sufficient  to  inform 
me  how  the  land  would  lie  between  Bradford  and 
myself. 

I  am  now,  on  all  occasions,  equipped  for  an  en- 
counter with  him,  Of  course,  I  have  been  obliged 


164  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

to  help  him  in  the  matter  of  introductions  among 
what  are  termed  the  best  people.  I  had  antici- 
pated something  that  might  at  least  resemble  grat- 
itude for  these  services.  I  have  found  that  my 
nephew  no  more  dreams  of  gratitude  than  he  does 
of  pecuniary  recompense.  He  always  refers  to  his 
mother  as  "the  old  lady,"  and  I  am  her  brother. 
That  is  all.  He  goes  everywhere  now,  and  he  is  a 
conspicuous  success.  He  nods  to  me  in  a  crowded 
ball-room  ;  at  a  dinner-party,  after  the  ladies  have 
left  the  dining-room,  he  will  sometimes  condescend 
to  join  me  for  a  cigarette.  His  manners  have  an 
outside  grace  and  decorum,  but  beyond  this  they 
are  simply  barbaric.  It  is  amazing  with  how  coldly 
sardonic  a  view  he  regards  all  society,  —  all  woman- 
kind. 

"  Going  to  dance  to-night  ?  "  he  said  to  me  one 
evening  at  a  ball  given  by  the  Marchleys  in  their 
charming  Madison  Avenue  mansion. 

"  I  lead  the  german,"  I  said  sombrely,  "  with 
Miss  Ada  Marchley." 

"  Shan't  dance  myself,"  returned  my  nephew. 

"  No  ?  " 

"No.     Don't  like  the  gang." 

"  The  what?"  I  faltered  dubiously. 

"  Gang.  Beastly  crowd  here.  These  people 
don't  know  anybody  to  speak  of.  Of  course  you 
understand.  I  hate  these  pushers.  Sorry  I  came." 

"  I  '(1  go  then,  Bradford,"  I  said. 

"  Am  going.  Lots  o'  men  here.  They  've  got 
all  the  men.  But  who  cares  for  them?  No  girls. 
Have  some  wine  ?  " 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  165 

We  were  standing  near  the  supper-table.  "  No," 
I  said.  He  stretched  out  a  hand  toward  a  cham- 
pagne-bottle as  I  moved  away  from  him. 

But  he  never  dares  to  adopt  this  style  with 
ladies. 

A  few  nights  afterward,  I  chanced  to  stand  near 
him  in  a  great  crush  at  the  Yorkvilles'.  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  observing  then  what  style  he  does 
dare  to  adopt  with  ladies.  I  am  not  sure  that  it 
is,  after  all,  much  less  execrable  than  the  demeanor 
he  assumes  toward  those  of  his  own  sex. 

He  had  paused  before  that  pretty,  Madonna-like 
blonde,  Ethel  Van  Buskirk.  Ethel  is  poor,  and  I 
suppose  that  hard-faced,  black-eyed  mother  of  hers 
has  long  ago  told  her  how  many  thousands  a  year 
my  nephew  will  have  when  my  sister  dies. 

"  You  look  bored  to  death,"  I  heard  him  say. 

Then  came  poor  little  Ethel's  voice.  "  O  Mr. 
Putnam  !  I  hope  you  don't  mean  it !  " 

"  Do  —  really.  Rather  becoming,  though,  for 
you  to  look  bored." 

Ethel,  whose  brain  is  not  massive,  here  gave  a 
sweet  trill  of  laughter.  "  That 's  a  great  deal  nicer 
than  what  you  just  said,"  she  affirmed. 

"  Will  you  talk  the  german  with  me  ? "  now 
asked  my  nephew. 

"  I  —  I  can't,"  hesitated  Ethel,  who,  as  I  am  cer- 
tain, loves  dancing,  like  the  dear  little  buoyant 
debutante  that  she  is.  "I  —  I  'm  engaged." 

"  Who  to  ?  "  inquired  Bradford.  His  grammar 
is  a  bit  of  my  faithful  realism. 


166  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Mr.  Georgy  Weehawken,"  answered  Ethel 
timidly. 

"  Oh !  drop  him,"  said  my  nephew. 

"I  —  I  can't  possibly.  What  do  you  mean,  Mr. 
Putnam  ?  " 

"  Drop  him,"  persisted  Bradford  glacially. 

"  He  's  sent  me  this  bouquet.  Look !  is  u't  it 
lovely?  Violets.  I  'ni  so  fond  of  violets,  too. 
The  idea  of  your  asking  such  a  thing !  Why,  it 's 
quite  dreadful.  What  could  I  say  to  Mr.  Wee- 
hawken ?  " 

"  I  '11  tell  you  what  to  say." 

This  was  the  last  that  I  heard  of  my  nephew's 
conversation  with  Miss  Van  Buskirk.  They  moved 
off  together  immediately  afterward  arm  in  arm. 
But  Ethel  did  not  dance  the  germ  an  that  night. 
Most  probably  she  "  talked  it,"  as  the  slangy  cur- 
rent phrase  goes,  with  my  nephew. 

He  is  totally  without  any  sense  of  the  hospi- 
tality anywhere  bestowed  upon  him.  When  he 
enters  a  house  of  entertainment,  it  is  always  with 
the  arrogant  understanding  that  he  confers  a  favor 
by  his  presence  there.  Every  sip  of  wine  that  he 
condescends  to  take,  means,  in  his  estimation,  a 
kind  of  careless  compliment  paid  his  host  or  host- 
ess. They  have  invited  him  ;  that  he  has  deigned 
to  notice  the  invitation  by  his  acceptance  is  in 
itself  an  immense  favor.  The  old  gallantry,  the 
time-honored  recognition  of  devoir,  of  gentlemanly 
allegiance  and  submissive  suavity,  is  as  foreign  to 
his  nature  as  pliancy  would  be  to  an  oaken  staff. 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  167 

The  merely  pleasure-seeking  element  in  New  York 
society  is  condemned  to-day  by  sensible  people 
more  severely  than  ever  before.  I  think  that  such 
members  of  this  society  as  my  nephew  (cold,  ego- 
tistical, unblessed  with  a  single  trait  of  the  sweet 
and  manly  duteousness  which  makes  all  worthy 
intercourse  between  the  sexes  bloom  and  thrive) 
is  a  potent  reason  for  this  growing  disfavor. 

He  has  no  recognition,  no  appreciation,  of  any 
inherent  natural  excellence  in  a  woman.  Not  long 
ago  he  said  to  me  : 

"I  see  that  Miss  Jerseyheight  is  going  to  be 
quite  a  belle." 

"  She  deserves  to  be  one,"  I  answered.  "  She  is 
very  handsome,  and  has  a  most  charming  disposi- 
tion." 

"  I  hear  she  '11  have  a  million  some  day,"  he  said 
reflectively.  "  Is  it  true  ?  " 

"  Possibly,"  I  replied. 

"  That  explains  it." 

And  "  that,"  with  my  nephew,  explains  count- 
less things.  No  one  in  his  creed  is  genuine.  He 
takes  all  falsity  and  insincerity  for  granted.  His 
pessimism  is  something  as  positive  and  secure  as 
an  ice-peak  in  the  arctic  zones.  All  the  wisdom 
of  all  the  sages  since  Plato  could  not  shake  it.  It 
colors  the  universe  for  him.  You  could  not  sur- 
prise him  by  any  deed  of  treachery  or  meanness  or 
arrant  selfishness,  and  you  could  not  convince  him 
that  any  deed  of  worth  and  nobility  was  purely 
disinterested. 


168  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

He  is  wholly  without  a  grain  of  chivalry.  Age, 
in  either  male  or  female,  stirs  nothing  except  his 
disdain.  To  be  old,  in  his  code,  is  to  be  more  or 
less  ridiculous.  "  Who  's  giving  this  party,  any- 
how ?  "  he  murmured  to  me  the  other  night  at  a 
certain  house. 

"  Is  it  possible  you  have  not  yet  been  presented 
to  the  hostess-?"  I  asked.  It  was  then  nearly 
one  o'clock. 

'"No.  I  looked  about  when  I  came  in,  but  the 
only  person  I  saw  who  might  be  Mrs.  Rockaway 
was  a  thin  old  woman  in  blue,  standing  all  alone. 
I  do  so  hate  old  women,  you  know.  But  to  have 
to  talk  with  one  till  somebody  else  comes  up  and 
relieves  you,  —  that 's  simply  damnable." 

"  Did  I  not  see  you  talking  for  a  good  while 
with  one  last  night  at  the  Effinghams',  Bradford  ?  " 
I  could  not  help  slyly  questioning. 

"  Last  night  ?  I  ?  "  he  questioned  in  return. 
Then  he  shook  his  head.  "  No,  I  '11  bet  you 
did  n't !  "  he  asserted  roundly.  But  then  he  under- 
went a  sudden  change  of  expression.  "  Oh  !  "  he 
said  again,  "  I  remember." 

"  You  see  I  was  right,"  I  reminded  him. 

"  Of  course  you  were,"  he  conceded  with  a  flut- 
ter of  the  eyelids  and  a  slight  backward  motion  of 
the  head.  "  That  was  a  howling  old  swell,  though ; 
there 's  a  lot  of  difference  between  an  old  woman 
like  Lady  Tenniscourt  and  a  good  many  others. 
Thought  you  knew  her,"  he  went  on.  "  I  used  to 
know  her  son  Jack  when  I  was  at  Harrow,  and 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  169 

once  I  staid  with  him  at  her  house  in  Surrey. 
She  's  on  her  way  to  visit  another  son  out  in  Man- 
itoba or  Cheyenne,  or  somewhere;  that  's  why 
she  's  here  now,  you  know.  Her  husband  's  the 
eighth  or  ninth  earl  :  they  're  really  dreadful 
swells  over  in  England." 

"  I  perceive,"  I  said,  with  tones  that  were  no 
doubt  curt,  and  a  look  that  was  rather  hard,  "  why 
you  condescended  to  make  an  old  lady,  in  this  one 
exceptional  case,  the  recipient  of  your  politeness." 

I  dare  say  he  had  no  idea  that  I  meant  to  deal 
him  a  thrust.  He  certainly  regarded  me  as  if  he 
had  no  such  idea.  It  would  have  to  be  a  fierce 
thrust  indeed  that  would  disjoint  a  single  hinge  in 
that  panoply  he  wears.  Its  plates  are  all  of  solid 
self-esteem,  and  they  are  riveted  together  with 
assurance. 

Philosophers  usually  insist  that  people  of  ele- 
vated souls  and  high  moral  standards  get  what  is 
best  out  of  life.  I  should  have  liked  the  great 
Emerson  to  tell  me  what  he  thought  about  this 
nephew  of  mine.  Very  possibly  he  would  have 
said  some  brilliant,  wise,  philosophic  thing,  if  he 
had  been  called  upon  to  give  an  estimate  of  Brad- 
ford's true  relations  toward  society,  and  the  place 
that  he  really  holds  among  his  fellows.  But  Brad- 
ford, who  would  doubtless  not  have  understood  the 
apothegm  even  if  he  had  heard  it,  would  have 
gone  on  in  his  career  precisely  the  same.  If  he  is 
to  be  pitied  he  is  very  loftily  ignorant  of  it.  He 
may  be  a  mote  in  a  sunbeam  j  but  he  has  got  into 


170  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

a  particularly  warm  sunbeam,  nevertheless,  and  he 
has  no  consciousness  whatever  of  being  anything 
so  small  as  a  mote.  Profoundly  selfish,  and  rather 
proud  than  ignorant  of  his  selfishness,  I  should 
like  to  learn  in  what  respect  my  nephew  is  not 
more  happy  than  many  —  very  many  —  virtuous, 
generous,  self-sacrificing  men.  As  I  watch  him, 
favored  and  even  petted  of  fortune,  with  his  worst 
faults  so  easily  condoned,  with  his  minutest  atoms 
of  goodness  so  charitably  magnified,  with  the 
world  eager  to  bend  upon  him  its  most  indulgent 
smile,  with  a  conscience  as  pellucid  and  as  flinty  as 
glass,  with  a  heart  as  calm  and  as  frigid  as  marble, 
with  nerves  that  can  sensuously  tingle  to  all  appe- 
tite, with  an  intellect  exempt  from  all  troublous 
problems  because  well  below  the  level  of  all  note- 
worthy thought,  —  as  I  watch  him  in  this  unalter- 
ing  and  self-contained  state  of  human  ease,  I  am 
forced  to  remember  the  thousands  after  thousands 
of  his  fellow-beings  who  yearly  drop  maimed  and 
weary  and  jaded  into  their  graves. 

Such  individuals  as  my  nephew  would  seem  to 
give  every  tenet  and  axiom  of  ethical  philosophy 
the  lie.  I  do  not  say  that  they  do;  I  only  say 
that  they  seem.  We  are  told  that  there  is  always 
a  Nemesis  waiting  somewhere  in  the  shadow  of 
every  life,  —  a  Fury,  who  will  one  day  bind  our 
vices  and  follies  into  a  merciless  scorpion-whip. 
Meanwhile,  where  is  my  nephew's  Nemesis?  where 
is  his  Fury  ?  He  may  lose  health ;  but  saints 
have  had  to  bear  that  calamity.  He  may  lose  his 


A  NEPHEW  OF  MINE.  171 

wealth ;  but  magnanimous  reformers  of  the  pur- 
est type  have  thus  suffered.  And  meanwhile  he 
drives,  rides,  dines,  and  does  not  even  dream  of  a 
doubled  rose-leaf  under  his  mattress.  En  effet,  he 
could  sleep  peacefully  over  a  cobble-stone,  he  is 
so  blunt  and  unsensitive,  this  nephew  of  mine  ! 

What  does  it  all  mean  ?  I  ask  myself  again  and 
again.  Are  there  such  absurdly  short  cuts  as  this 
to  the  long-sought  realm  of  earthly  happiness? 
When  the  mightiest  of  our  race  spend  lifetimes  in 
seeking  that  summum  "bonum,  does  it  now  and  then 
fall,  a  willing  star,  in  the  lap  of  some  idling  syba- 
rite ?  We  sneer  nowadays  at  the  doctrine  of  the 
elect.  But  how  tyrannical  is  that  strange  elective 
agency  from  which,  every  hour  in  the  day,  Mr. 
Bradford  Putnam  reaps  so  full  and  unfailing  a 
profit !  We  constantly  speak  of  America  as  a 
young  country,  but  I  am  sometimes  of  the  opinion 
that  we  are  wrong  in  ever  alluding  to  her  youth. 
Certainly  she  produces  types  now  and  then  which 
would  seem  the  result  of  hoary  centuries.  As  a 
confirmation  of  this  judgment,  I  have  only  to  look 
at  my  nephew.  Old  before  his  time,  without  a 
single  republican  instinct  or  impulse,  with  not  a 
gleam  of  spontaneity,  freshness,  or  juvenility,  he 
might  stand  to-day  for  the  latest  civilized  out- 
growth of  some  half- crumbled  monarchy,  ancient 
as  India,  corrupt  as  France,  as  patrician  as  Eng- 
land, and  ( I  had  almost  added)  cruel  as  Russia. 


172  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XIV. 

THE  LADY  WITH  A   SON-IN-LAW. 

ABOUT  four  summers  ago,  while  I  was  making  a 
rather  extended  tour  of  the  Catskills,  I  stopped 
for  several  days  at  a  populous  country  boarding- 
house  quite  in  the  heart  of  these  charming  hills. 
I  found  myself  nearly  the  sole  "  transient  "  guest ; 
all  the  others  were  people  who  had  resolved  upon 
a  permanent  stay.  They  were  about  twenty  in  all, 
and  a  great  amount  of  intimacy  existed  between 
them,  with  the  usual  revelation  of  antipathy  and 
enmity  as  well.  They  were  mostly  New-Yorkers ; 
and  yet,  as  it  happened,  I  had  never  met  any  of 
them  before,  or  even  heard  their  names.  Many  of 
the  ladies  were  very  refined  and  even  high-bred, 
and  not  a  few  of  the  men  had  not  only  excellent 
manners  but  were  thoroughly  good  fellows  as 
well.  It  struck  me  that  most  of  them  must  have 
been  possessed  of  limited  incomes,  or  they  would 
never  have  chosen  an  inn  of  sojourn  where,  not- 
withstanding cloud-shadowed  slopes,  lovely  alter- 
nations of  mist  and  sunbeam,  delightful  enchant- 
ment of  purple  afternoons  and  gorgeous  twilights, 
a  relentless  monotony  existed  in  the  way  of  doughy 
bread,  sanguinary  beefsteak,  apocryphal  coffee, 


THE  LADY  WITS  A  SON-IN-LAW.  173 

and  scandalous  butter.  I  suppose  I  would  not 
have  thought  of  their  worldly  wealth  if  I  had  not 
also  thought  of  their  unknown  social  places,  and 
told  myself  what  a  farce  it  meant  when  we  heeded 
the  question,  here  in  America,  of  who  was  or  who 
was  not  "  in  society."  The  whole  absurd  scheme 
of  our  transatlantic  aristocracy  had  never  met  me 
in  such  candid  colors  as  it  did  there,  at  this  obscure 
Catskill  boarding-house.  There  was  Miss  Howson, 
who  had  a  face  of  dainty  freshness,  and  dressed  in 
cool,  modish  muslins ;  there  was  Miss  Thompson, 
who  painted  leaves  and  flowers  prettily,  and  sang 
sweet,  silvery  songs  of  an  evening  about  Killar- 
ney's  lakes  and  fells,  and  the  lass  who  married  her 
own  love,  her  own  love,  and  —  well,  I  forget  the 
graceful  refrain  of  the  song,  more  shame  to  me ; 
there  was  Miss  Pansy  Trott,  who  was  clever  and 
had  been  graduated  at  Yassar,  and  thought  that 
although  the  great  modern  thinkers  were  men  of 
grand  intellect,  their  lack  of  a  sound  spiritual  faith 
was  gravely  to  be  deplored ;  there  was  ethereal, 
slim-handed  Miss  Clingley,  who  could  have  kept 
the  classic  suitors  waiting  much  longer,  I  am  sure, 
than  Penelope  did,  with  her  marvellous  needle- 
work effects  in  every  tint  and  design  (I  remember 
once  offending  her  by  asking  her  whether  she 
did  n't  think  she  could  do  the  balcony  scene  from 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  with  a  moon  of  white  sewing- 
silk  and  a  balcony  of  brown  braid)  ;  there  was 
airy,  piquante  Miss  Tinkle,  who  could  say  saucy 
things  with  such  a  winsome  pout,  and  flirt  in  cor- 


174  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ners  of  piazzas  with  such  a  mundane  innocence ; 
there  was,  in  short,  a  bevy  of  nice  girls,  who  dif- 
fered only  from  the  nice  girls  whom  I  had  met 
where  fashion  and  snobbery  reigned  and  tyran- 
nized by  no  discoverable  trait  except  their  freedom 
from  a  certain  silly  and  irritating  exclusiveness. 
Every  one  of  them  had  the  same  right  to  call  her- 
self "  swell,"  and  "  good  form,"  and  "  in  the  proper 
set,"  which  the  Misses  Spuytenduyvil  and  Amster- 
dam and  Hackensack  possess,  since  it  is  obvious 
enough  that  the  slightest  patrician  claim,  not 
founded  upon  mere  vulgar  wealth,  is  mean  and 
cheap  in  a  country  whose  very  bulwark  and  safe- 
guard should  be  an  avoidance  of  European  imita- 
tions. And  yet  these  young  ladies  put  forward  no 
such  claim,  and  were  all  the  more  charming  because 
they  did  not.  I  often  think  that  it  is  just  such 
girls  as  these  who  make  our  country  endurable  for 
a  man  of  mind  and  sincerity.  If  all  our  young 
women  were  like  the  haughty  and  yet  hare-brained 
minxes  whom  one  is  so  apt  to  meet  in  New  York 
ball-rooms,  Heaven  knows  how  many  sensible 
American  bachelors  would  make  a  determined 
stand  against  matrimony ! 

The  men  were  less  engaging,  as  a  body ;  but  some 
of  them  I  found  most  companionable  and  attractive. 
They  were  rarely  versed  —  the  younger  ones,  I 
mean  —  in  those  mighty  mysteries  of  the  toilet 
which  make  it  a  crime  to  wear  a  tall  hat  with  a 
sack-coat,  or  to  don  a  low  one  with  a  double- 
breasted  frock-coat.  I  don't  believe  that  any  of 


THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IN-LAW.  175 

them  knew  when  it  was  a  dark  sin  to  appear  in 
gloves,  and  when  it  was  a  shining  act  of  probity 
to  be  without  gloves.  A  minority  of  them  were 
engrossed  in  matters  more  trivial,  like  the  search 
for  botanical  specimens,  or  the  desire  to  study 
geological  formations,  or  the  aim  to  spend  a  vaca- 
tion from  less  congenial  pursuits  in  solid  and 
profitable  reading.  One  of  them  was  a  pale,  slen- 
der fellow  of  about  six  and  twenty,  who  had  made 
a  rather  fair  literary  success,  considering  his  age, 
by  a  series  of  articles  in  a  well-known  New  York 
journal.  His  name  was  Reuben  Rodd,  and  he 
aimed  to  be  a  novelist.  I  think  he  would  have 
been  a  good  one  if  he  had  lived ;  but  even  then  he 
was  consumptive,  and  I  saw  his  death  the  following 
year  recorded  in  the  very  newspaper  which  was  at 
this  time  publishing  his  bright,  able  sketches. 

But  Reuben  Rodd  was  fearfully  sensitive  to  the 
mosquito-stings  of  that  multitudinous  band  of 
scribblers  which  we  call  "the  critics."  Even  then, 
as  I  have  said,  he  was  ill ;  and  I  don't  doubt  that 
these  vicious  human  insects,  hatched  by  the  sun- 
shine of  his  brief  success,  bit  and  harassed  him 
unto  his  death.  They  kill  a  weak  life  some- 
times :  it  is  only  the  man  of  good  health  who  can 
flatten  them  into  extinction  with  a  few  lusty  slaps 
of  his  palm.  Poor  Reuben,  when  we  first  got  to 
know  each  other,  was  suffering  from  the  assault  of 
one  of  those  Xew  York  comic  journals  which  are 
always  coming  and  going  in  this  country,  and 
which  can  never  live  here,  because  when  not  vul- 
garly personal  they  are  stupidly  tame. 


176  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Through  the  young  man's  distress  I  came  to 
have  long  chats  with  his  excellent  mother,  a  widow, 
Mrs.  Rodd.  She  was  a  little  less  than  forty,  with 
a  fair,  bright,  amiable  face,  and  a  tendency  toward 
stoutness.  She  was  very  fond  of  Reuben,  as  she 
was  very  fond,  also,  of  her  remaining  child,  Re- 
becca, aged  about  sixteen.  I  thought  Rebecca, 
with  her  folded  hands,  her  really  perfect  com- 
plexion, her  bashfulness,  and  her  unquestionable 
simper,  not  a  little  depressing.  But  I  liked  Mrs. 
Rodd,  who  seemed  to  me  typically  an  American 
matron,. with  assertiveness  yet  with  modesty,  and 
with  self-assurance  yet  with  self-respect. 

"I  feel  so  for  Reuben ! "  she  said  to  me  one  even- 
ing. "  Of  course,  being  his  mother,  Mr.  Manhat- 
tan, I  can't  help  that.  But  I  think  it  is  so  horrid 
for  that  little  comic  journal  to  have  called  his 
work  'trash  ' !  and  I  'm  sure  I  should,  think  so  if 
I  were  not  his  mother." 

"I  am  not  his  mother,  Mrs.  Rodd,"  I  replied, 
"  and  I  think  it  horrid  too.  I  am  not  an  author 
myself;  but  I  can't  imagine  any  author,  who  has 
the  least  belief  in  his  own  ability  (without  which 
he  should  not  write  at  all),  reading  or  noticing 
anything  the  droves  of  pitiful  reviewers  may 
write  about  it.  All  modern  so-called  literary  jour- 
nals are  mediums  of  advertisement.  In  America 
this  is  so  true  that  not  one  of  those  which  now 
exist  could  live  three  months  without  the  Messrs. 
This  advertised  their  new  patent  sewing-machine 
there,  or  the  Messrs.  That  their  latest  perfumery 


THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IN-LAW.  177 

or  piano.  The  very  condition  of  the  being  of  these 
organs  puts  a  premium  upon  injustice.  This  little 
comic  journal,  which  so  hurts  your  son  by  reviling 
.  his  work,  feeds  its  little  life  through  two  means,  — 
insult  and  advertisement.  It  will  die  of  its  own 
poison  and  its  commercial  enterprise." 

"And  so  will  my  son  die,  I  fear,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Rodd.  He  did  die,  in  a  year  afterward,  as  I  have 
recorded. 

But  Mrs.  Rodd  did  not  die ;  and,  although  nearly 
three  years  elapsed  between  the  time  I  parted  from 
her  there  in  the  Catskills  and  the  period  of  our 
next  meeting,  I  found  myself  repeatedly  recalling 
her  genial  face  and  presence.  I  never  met  her  in 
my  New  York  goings  and  comings.  Yet  somehow 
I  never  forgot  her.  She  was  not  an  intellectual 
woman  in  any  sense.  But  she  was  full  of  hearti- 
ness, of  spontaneity,  of  unaffected  charm.  She 
had  impressed  me  as  being  one  of  those  people 
who  are  thoroughly  satisfied  with  life,  because  the 
blood  runs  warm,  the  heart  beats  free  yet  with 
temperate  strokes,  the  digestion  is  exempt  from  all 
retardment,  the  brain  is  well  swept  of  all  illusory 
cobwebs.  I  fancy  that  I  liked  her  because  she  put 
forth  no  effort  to  make  me  do  so,  but  somehow 
took  for  granted  that  I  naturally  would  like  her. 
She  was  so  healthful,  so  normal,  so  unassailed  by 
caprices  or  moods !  Her  daughter  Rebecca  had 
seemed  to  me  a  milky-complexioned  nonentity,  and 
nothing  more.  And  I  am  afraid  that  I  had  quite 
forgotten  she  had  a  daughter,  until  I  received  a 


178  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

card    one  day   to  the  wedding  of  Miss  Rebecca 
Rodd  and  Mr.  Faulkner  Castlegarden. 

Of  course,  I  knew  the  Castlegardens.  There  are 
always  about  ten  or  twelve  of  them  actively  in 
society,  and  their  name  is  legion.  I  could  not  go 
to  the  wedding  of  this  particular  scion:  some 
engagement  or  other  averting  event  occurred  —  I 
do  not  recall  just  what.  A  little  later,  however,  I 
learned  that  the  Castlegardens  had  collectively 
rather  frowned  upon  this  match.  It  was  considered 
by  them  a  misalliance ;  it  was  not  the  sort  of  way 
that  a  Castlegarden  had  usually  married.  I  remem- 
bered one  who  was  reported  to  have  married  his 
cook,  and  another  who  wedded  considerably  worse ; 
but  I  refrained  from  reviving  these  melancholy 
family  annals.  The  Castlegardens  have  always 
been  noted  for  ignoring  their  own  faults  superbly. 
I  think  that  surely  ten  of  their  male  members  must 
lie  prematurely  in  that  big  vault  up  in  Westches- 
ter  County,  with  drink  as  the  sole  and  certain 
cause.  But  the  Castlegardens  never  call  it  drink. 
Hereditary  gout  sounds  so  much  better!  And, 
indeed,  I  rather  agree  with  them  there.  But  you 
can't  help  smiling  sometimes,  when  you  hear 
them  mention  this  little  trouble  as  though  it  were 
one  of  the  quarterings  on  their  escutcheon.  Miss 
Rodd  had  certainly  not  brought  her  lord  a  fortune. 
I  suppose  this  formed  the  major  reason  why  she 
was  held  an  undesirable  bride  for  Faulkner.  But 
as  I  thought  of  Mrs.  Rodd,  with  her  wholesome, 
unjaundiced  views  of  life,  I  assured  myself  that 


THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IN-LAW.  179 

any  of  the  Castlegardens  who  attempted  to  handle 
her  without  gloves  would  run  the  risk  of  burnt 
fingers. 

Perhaps  six  months  after  her  daughter's  marriage, 
I  met  her  at  an  afternoon  reception, — one  of  those 
crushes  that  are  bedlams  of  empty  chatter,  besides 
seeming  as  though  above  their  doorways  had  been 
placed  some  Dantesque  legend,  like,  "He  who 
enters  here  leaves  average  intelligence  behind." 
The  affair  had  been  given  by  a  certain  Mrs.  Tril- 
lington,  a  lady  whose  origin  is  nebulous,  and  whose 
success,  though  beyond  dispute  a  fact,  always  has 
seemed  to  me  extraordinary.  Mrs.  Trillington  is 
artificiality  itself.  "  I  am  so  delighted  to  see  you, 
my  dear  Mr.  Manhattan !  "  she  will  exclaim  to  me 
while  grasping  my  hand,  and  at  the  same  time  she 
will  be  peering  over  her  shoulder  at  some  one  else. 
Her  hand-shake  rarely  goes  with  her  glance;  to 
receive  both  simultaneously,  you  must  indeed  be 
fortunate. 

To-day  I  rather  copied  Mrs.  Trillington's  divided 
method  of  salutation,  and  found  myself  looking 
across  my  own  shoulder  at  Mrs.  Rodd.  She  was 
charming  when  I  reclaimed  acquaintance  with  her; 
but  she  was  charming  in  such  an  altered  way !  I 
could  not  account  for  it :  it  was  so  different  from 
what  I  had  expected.  She  was  still  stout ;  I  fan- 
cied that  she  was  by  some  degrees  stouter  than 
when  I  had  last  met  her.  The  smile  which  I  had 
liked  still  beamed  about  her  full,  calm  lips.  But 
she  was  not  the  Mrs.  Rodd  whom  I  had  remem- 
bered and  expected. 


180  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

She  shook  my  hand  quite  warmly.  "  I  'm  so 
sorry,"  she  said,  "that  you  did  not  see  my  Rebecca 
married  !  You  did  not.  Don't  deny  that  you  did 
not,  for  I  am  sure  —  perfectly  sure  —  about .  the 
matter." 

"You  are  right,  Mrs.  Rodd,"  I  answered.  "I 
wanted  so  much  to  be  at  the  wedding,  but "  — 

"No  4buts,'  "  she  broke  in.  "You  didn't  come, 
and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  I  suppose  you  heard"  — 
and  her  voice  softened  noticeably  —  "  about  poor 
Reuben's  death  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  heard.  It  was  most  unfortu- 
nate." 

"  Poor  Reuben !  He  passed  away  very  quietly 
at  the  last  moment.  By  the  by,  have  you  met  my 
son-in-law,  Mr.  Faulkner  Castlegarden?" 

"Not  yet,"  I  replied. 

"Come  and  dine  with  us  this  evening,"  said 
Mrs.  Rodd.  "  A  little  informal  dinner,  you  know. 
Can  you  come  ?  " 

"Yes,  thanks,"  I  said. 

I  went.  The  dinner  startled  me.  Faulkner 
Castlegarden  appeared  at  it.  He  appeared  nearly 
drunk.  He  was  very  civil  to  me ;  but  his  red  face 
and  his  thick  speech  told  me  the  truth  at  once. 
Mrs.  Rodd  and  her  daughter  gave  no  sign  of  the 
real  truth.  They  both  ate  what  was  before  them 
in  quiet  unconcern.  Faulkner  drooped  and  almost 
slept  during  dinner.  As  soon  as  decency  would 
permit,  I  left  him,  and  joined  the  ladies  in  the 
drawing-room,  with  hard  thoughts  about  him  as  a 
fat,  drowsy,  and  incoherent  host. 


THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IN-LAW.  181 

"I  hope  you  had  a  nice  chat  with  dear  Faulkner," 
said  Mrs.  Rodd  as  I  approached  her  after  my 
escape. 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  I  answered,  lying  conventionally.  "I 
think  he  will  come  in  soon.  He 's  a  bit  sleepy, 
I  fancy." 

Mrs.  Rodd  and  her  daughter  both  laughed. 

"  Dear  Faulkner ! "  said  his  mother-in-law.  "  He 
may  be  wanting  a  nap,  poor  fellow !  Do  you  know, 
Mr.  Manhattan,"  she  added,  "that  one  thing  is 
really  a  fa'ct  about  all  the  Castlegardens  ?  They 
all  require  a  nap  after  dinner.  I  've  noticed  it  in 
his  cousin,  Audubon,  and  his  second-cousin, 
Lothrop,  and  his  —  what  is  the  relationship,  Re- 
becca, of  Clyde  Castlegarden,  my  dear  ?  " 

Rebecca  shook  her  head  reflectively,  and  did  not 
answer.  Mrs.  Rodd  did  not  seem  to  require  an 
answer,  however.  I  thought,  as  I  regarded  her, 
that  I  had  never  seen  a  woman  so  completely 
changed.  All  her  old  calm,  secure  independence 
was  altered.  There  was  something  tremulous  and 
insecure  in  her  demeanor. 

"  You  know,"  she  said  to  me,  resuming  her  pre- 
vious discourse,  "that  these  Castlegardens  are  a 
very  remarkable  family." 

"Yes?  "I  replied.  ' 

"  They  are  all  very  aristocratic.  I  have  n't  ever 
thought  much  on  this  subject,  Mr.  Manhattan.  I 
don't  suppose  that  I  ever  really  knew  anything  at 
all  about  it  until  Rebecca  married  a  Castlegarden. 
I  imagined  that  there  was  no  social  good,  better, 


182  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

best,  don't  you  know,  until  my  eyes  were  opened 
by  Faulkner's  courtship.  And  since  then  I  've 
seen  so  much !  I  've  seen  that  there  are  grades 
and  differences  in  society.  The  Castlegardens, 
you  know,  are  a  great  family  for  us  to  marry  into. 
We,  the  Rodds,  were  never  very  much,  to  be  really 
frank  with  you.  I  was  only  a  poor  Indiana  girl  be- 
fore I  married  my  late  husband.  I  am  very  thankful 
that  Rebecca  has  done  so  well.  Of  course,  I  never 
dreamed,  Mr.  Manhattan,  when  I  met  you  there 
at  Blanford's  boarding-house  in  the  Catskills,  that 
you  were  one  of  the  real  old  Knickerbocker  peo- 
ple !  But  you  are  —  and  Faulkner  says  you  are  — 
and  that,  of  course,  settles  it.  We  met,  you  know, 
at  Mrs.  Trillington's.  I  don't  know  anything 
about  her.  Rebecca  and  I  don't  know  much  yet ; 
I  mean  who  exactly  is  who.  But  Faulkner  tells 
us  —  he  directs  us ;  he 's  a  Castlegarden,  you  know, 
and  of  course  the  Castlegardens  are  just  the  very 
highest.  I  leave  my  cards  everywhere  now,  with 
Rebecca,  and  I  find  that  it 's  just  the  same  as  if  I 
had  left  them  alone  by  myself.  All  the  old  Knick- 
erbocker families  call  on  us  and  recognize  us. 
Rebecca  did  a  good  thing.  They  all  treat  me 
politely  because  of  Tier.  You  never  said  anything 
about  yourself,  there  in  the  Catskills,  Mr.  Manhat- 
tan. You  never  gave  us  an  idea  that  you  were 
swell)  —  that  you  belonged  among  the  good  old 
families.  You  seem  so  different  now !  I  can 
scarcely  realize  that  you  're  the  same  being.  But 
Faulkner  has  told  us.  And  —  " 


THE  LADY  WITH  A  SON-IX-LAW.  183 

I  interrupted  Mrs.  Rodd  here.  I  stretched  forth 
a  hand  and  took  her  own.  "  My  dear  Mrs.  Rodd," 
I  murmured,  "  you  are  so  changed !  " 

"  Changed  !  "  she  repeated. 

"  Yes,"  I  pursued.  "  From  the  candid,  liberal, 
untrammelled  woman  whom  I  met  that  summer  in 
the  Catskills." 

She  perceptibly  recoiled.  Her  sunny  brow  dark- 
ened. She  looked  at  me  as  if  she  wanted  to 
quarrel  with  me. 

"  How  am  I  different  ?  "  she  queried  annoyedly. 

"  You  have  a  son-in-law,"  I  replied  with  untold 
impudence. 

She  tossed  her  head.  The  gesture  was  so  unlike 
the  Mrs.  Rodd  of  the  Catskills,  —  the  Mrs.  Rodd 
whom  no  folly  of  caste  or  vaunted  superiority  of 
position  could  assail,  —  the  Mrs.  Rodd  who  had 
loved  her  dying  son  so  fondly,  and  had  so  hated 
the  gnats  and  gad-flies  that  had  set  their  little 
stings  into  his  failing  life. 

"  I  have  a  son-in-law,"  she  said  with  vast  pride 
of  tone,  "  who  is  a  Castlegarden." 

I  laughed.  I  think  I  laughed  cruelly.  I  could 
not  help  it.  It  seemed  to  me  so  worthy  of  scorch- 
ing contempt.  All  the  comprehension  of  how  ill 
all  humanity  stands  any  great  tests  appeared  con- 
centrated in  that  one  last  sentence  of  Mrs.  Rodd's. 
What  she  had  once  been  to  me  flashed  upon  me  in 
swift  retrospect.  What  she  had  now  become,  in 
her  cringing  before  gross  idols,  filled  me  with  a 
just  sorrow. 


184  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  You  liave  a  son-in-law,"  I  said,  "  who  is  drunk 
witli  wine." 

She  gave  a  great  start.  "  How  dare  you !  "  she 
cried. 

"  This  is  how  you  are  changed,"  I  pursued 
relentlessly.  "  This  is  how  you  have  bettered  your 
place  and  fame  from  what  they  both  were  when  we 
«iet  in  the  Catskills,  —  when  you  spoke  to  me 
with  tears  of  the  dead  boy  whom  those  cruel 
adventurers  of  the  pen  helped  to  slay.  This  is 
how  you  have  bettered  yourself,  —  you  and  the 
daughter  who  crouches  yonder  in  tremor,  in  dis- 
tress. You  have  a  son-in-law.  You  have  achieved 
something.  You  have  a  son-in-law,  beyond 
doubt." 

Mrs.  Rodd's  eyes  flashed.  "  My  son-in-law  will 
answer  your  insolence  !  "  she  cried. 

"  He  can't,"  I  said  quietly.  "  He  is  drunk  in 
the  dining-room." 

It  is  really  wonderful  that  Mrs.  Rodd  and  I 
should  still  be  good  friends.  But  we  somehow  are. 
And  yet  she  still  stays  loyal  to  her  son-in-law.  I 
meet  her  constantly.  I  am  sometimes  so  near  her 
that  I  can  hear  her  refer  to  him  —  at  receptions,  I 
mean,  and  at  an  occasional  large  ball.  But  she 
always  refers  to  him  with  respect.  She  is  always, 
to  my  mind  (regretfully  and  pathetically),  the 
lady  with  a  son-in-law. 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  185 


XV. 

THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES. 

ONE  day  at  the  Metropolitan  Club  I  became 
conscious  of  Mr.  J.  Morton  Studwell.  I  use  this 
phrase  because,  although  I  had  met  and  even 
spoken  with  the  gentleman  before,  his  personality 
had  not  in  any  way  appealed  to  me.  Perhaps  I 
had  observed  that  he  was  dark  and  slim,  yet  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  had  made  either  observation.  But 
on  the  day  now  mentioned  I  had  talked  with  him, 
and  been  somewhat  attracted  by  him. 

His  appearance  was  very  gentlemanly  and  allur- 
ing. He  spoke  with  a  low,  musical  voice.  He 
had  extremely  white  hands,  which  he  used  very 
often  in  stroking  a  rather  copious  black  mustache. 
He  was  not  a  member  of  the  Metropolitan,  but  had 
been  introduced  there  as  a  visitor  by  an  elderly 
club  man  who  rarely  left  domestic  quarters.  He 
had  been  living  for  several  years  abroad,  though  a 
native  of  Charleston,  S.  C.  He  spoke  enough  like 
an  Englishman  not  to  be  taken  for  an  American, 
and  yet  he  had  no  trace  of  salient  British  man- 
nerism. 

"  I  find  everything  very  new  and  strange  here," 
he  told  me  with  a  gentle,  suave  air  of  confidence. 


186  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  I  lived  a  good  while  abroad,  you  know  —  prin- 
cipally in  Paris.  The  life  there  is  so  different !  " 

"  Oh,  very  different ! "  I  assented. 

"  One  must  breathe  the  true  French  social  atmos- 
phere," he  continued,  "  to  thoroughly  enjoy  Paris. 
One  must  get  to  know  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain 
people,  and  all  that." 

"I suppose  you  know  them,  Mr.  Studwell?" 

He  smiled.  He  had  quite  a  sweet  smile,  and  I 
fancied  that  it  now  wore  a  gleam  of  courteous 
pity. 

"  Many  of  them  are  my  warm  personal  friends," 
he  said. 

"  And  shall  you  remain  here  in  America  perma- 
nently ?  "  I  questioned. 

He  lifted  his  eyebrows  a  little,  and  slightly 
shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  I  must  remain  for  the 
present.  I  have  no  alternative.  My  stay  con- 
cerns a — well,  Mr.  Manhattan,  a  protracted  law- 
suit about  certain  inherited  property." 

I  felt  that  this  was  a  magnificent  way  of  silen- 
cing me,  and  refrained  from  asking  a  single  other 
question.  There  was  certainly  something  impres- 
sive, even  to  the  most  republican  mind,  about  a 
young  gentleman  who  had  torn  himself  from  the 
aristocratic  circles  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain 
for  reasons  which  concerned  a  litigated  inheri- 
tance. 

I  soon  discovered  that  in  his  quiet,  modest  way, 
he  had  not  a  few  thrilling  experiences  to  relate. 
He  had  fought  a  duel  in  Belgium  with  the  fiery 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  187 

young  Due  de  D ,  and  received  a  rather  severe 

wound.  A  fiery  young  count  would  have  startled 
me  far  less  than  a  duke  of  similar  temper.  We  are 
always  hearing  of  duels  with  counts,  but  a  ducal  en- 
counter carries  with  it  to  the  American  mind  a  sense 
of  distinction  and  rarity.  Then,  again,  I  learned 
that  Mr.  Stud  well  had  saved  the  life  of  Prince 
Colorma,  his  dear  friend,  when  the  yacht  of  the  lat- 
ter had  been  terribly  jeopardized  in  a  squall  off 
Guernsey.  The  prince  had  given  his  friend  an 
amethyst  ring  set  in  silver.  "It  is  somewhere 
among  my  traps,  that  ring,"  said  Mr.  Studwell  in 
careless  comment  upon  the  gift.  "  It 's  exceedingly 
pretty;  I  would  not  part  with  it  for  anything;  but 
I  don't  wear  it,  because  I  hate  all  except  the  plain- 
est jewelry."  He  confided  to  me,  also,  that  he 
had  taken  active  part  with  the  French  during  the 
siege  of  Paris.  "  My  wound  there,"  he  proceeded, 
"was  a  serious  one.  The  bullet  came  very  near 
my  heart.  I  was  carried  off  by  that  excellent 
friend  of  mine,  the  Viscount  Cluny,  covered  with 
blood  and  in  an  unconscious  condition.  My  life 
hung  by  a  thread  for  weeks  afterward.  But  I  am 
rather  tough;  I  pulled  through,  as  the  English 
say." 

These  tales  of  hair-breadth  'scapes  were  de- 
livered with  such  hesitating  reluctance  that  I  often 
felt  as  if  I  had  unduly  stimulated  and  persuaded 
their  narration.  I  never  dreamed  of  doubting 
their  absolute  authenticity.  To  do  so  would  have 
struck  me  as  the  rankest  heresy.  They  appeared 


188  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

so  utterly  apart  from  the  least  vainglorious  vaunt- 
ing! Mr.  Studwell  never  seemed,  as  the  phrase 
goes,  to  sound  his  own  horn.  What  he  sounded 
was  more  like  an  unpretentious  little  flageolet,  and 
at  the  earnest  invitation  of  myself. 

His  term  of  sojourn  at  the  club  expired.  For 
more  than  a  fortnight  I  completely  lost  sight  of 
him.  We  had  not  bid  each  other  any  formal  fare- 
wells. I  had  failed  to  see  him  for  a  day  or  two 
before  his  enforced  departure  from  the  Metro- 
politan. 

But  one  evening  I  chanced  to  meet  him  in  the 
hall  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  It  instantly 
occurred  to  me  that  he  looked  dejected,  sombre, 
depressed;  but  his  bright  smile  soon  dissipated 
this  idea.  "  With  your  charming  club,"  he  said, 
"  I  wonder  that  you  should  drop  in  here." 

"Now  and  then  I  do  so,"  I  answered.  "The 
Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  attracts  a  man  sometimes  as 
he  passes  by  it.  It  has  such  a  cosmopolitan  sort 
of  glitter !  One  is  visited,  at  special  early  hours  in 
the  evening,  by  a  fancy  that  he  may  meet  here 
some  long-lost  European  acquaintance." 

"But  one  so  seldom  does,"  said  Mr.  Studwell 
with  a  soft,  full  smile,  that  showed  his  white  teeth 
under  his  dark,  drooping  mustache.  "  My  apart- 
ments are  not  far  from  here,  and  so  I  occasionally 
drop  in." 

"My  apartments,"  pronounced  by  his  placid 
lips,  gave  me  a  feeling  that  he  had  just  referred  to 
something  of  especial  elegance  and  luxury. 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  189 

"Do  you  live  very  near?"  I  inquired  with  a 
sense  of  rather  reckless  interrogation  even  while  I 
spoke. 

"Just  in  Twenty-Fourth  Street,"  was  the  reply. 
And  here  he  laughed,  with  an  upward  momentary 
wave  of  both  hands.  "  To  tell  the  truth,  until  my 
affairs  are  settled,  I  am  living  rather  —  obscurely." 

"Obscurely!  "  I  repeated,  catching  at  the  word. 
"You  mean  that  you  are  seeing  very  few  people?" 

"Not  just  that — not  just  that,"  he  murmured, 
scanning  the  marble  floor  as  we  strolled  forth  side 
by  side  toward  the  great  populous  doorway  of  the 
hotel.  "  I  mean  that  my  lodgings  are  a  bit  mod- 
est, and  —  primitive.  That  is  all.  To  tell  the 
truth,  I  had  a  fancy  for  something  plain  and  simple 
in  this  way.  I  am  a  fellow  of  rather  odd  caprices. 
I  sometimes  grow  tired  of  too  prosperous  living, 
and  long  for  a  change.  Can  you  explain  the  feel- 
ing? I  confess  that  I  cannot.  It  occasionally 
sweeps  over  me,  for  no  apparent  reason." 

We  were  now  in  the  open  street,  walking  north- 
ward in  the  direction  of  those  massed  irregular 
buildings,  the  Albemaiie  and  the  Hoffman  House, 
—  two  structures  that  I  have  always  thought  must 
interblend  their  architectural  identities  to  the  ex- 
tent of  forgetting  which  is  which.  "I  suppose 
your  caprice  is  like  all  others,"  I  said.  "  It  is  not, 
from  its  very  nature,  to  be  accounted  for.  How- 
ever, I  begin  to  think  this  New  York  craze  for 
household  decoration  an  extremely  tiresome  af- 
fair." 


190  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Mr.  Stud  well  laid  his  hand  upon  my  arm.  His 
eyes  sparkled  as  they  met  mine  in  the  rather  dubi- 
ous lamplight.  "You  express  my  own  opinions 
to  the  letter  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Nothing  is  more 
wearisome  than  this  inundation  of  decorative  ap- 
pointments. One  gets  positively  sick  of  Eastlake 
furniture  and  mediaeval  tapestry.  The  whole 
thing  affects  me,  at  times,  like  a  feverish  disease. 
I  find  myself  yearning  for  a  cane-bottomed  chair 
and  a  plain  unembellished  interior." 

"  And  you  have  practically  indulged  your  prej- 
udice ?  "  I  laughed. 

"  At  present  I  am  doing  so,"  he  answered.  He 
gave  a  quick  start  a  moment  later,  as  though  some 
new  thought  had  struck  him.  We  were  now  on 
the  corner  of  Twenty-Fourth  Street  and  Broadway. 
Once  more  he  laid  his  hand  upon  my  arm.  "  Do 
you  mind  witnessing  how  Spartan  I  have  be- 
come ? "  he  said.  "  My  lodgings  are  but  a  step 
from  here.  You  have  told  me  that  you  like  to 
study  human  nature,  Mr.  Manhattan.  Pray,  study 
me  in  a  new  phase  for  a  few  minutes,  and  after- 
ward reflect  at  your  leisure." 

I  was  interested,  and  still  perfectly  unsuspi- 
cious. I  accompanied  Mr.  Studwell  into  a  certain 
house  not  far  away.  He  opened  the  door  with  a 
latch-key,  and  we  ascended  three  flights  of  stairs. 
I  concede  that  the  chamber  into  which  he  pres- 
ently ushered  me  was  a  sharp  surprise,  notwith- 
standing all  my  friend's  preparatory  admissions. 
Jt  contained  a  small  bed  in  one  corner,  a  gaunt, 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  191 

dingy  wardrobe  in  another,  and  an  effete  wooden 
washstand  in  still  another.  Its  carpet  was  faded 
and  threadbare.  Its  chairs  were  not  cane-bottomed, 
but  upholstered  in  some  sort  of  frayed  and  dis- 
colored chintz  that  would  not  ill  have  suited  the 
back  apartment  of  a  Seventh  Avenue  pawnbroker. 
I  soon  perceived  that  my  host  was  intently  watch- 
ing me,  as  my  amazed  look  comprehended  all  these 
shabby  details. 

"  You  are  astounded ! "  he  exclaimed,  sinking 
into  one  of  the  faded  chairs.  "  Of  course,  I  knew 
that  you  would  be.  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  enjoy 
your  surprise !  The  most  ridiculous  scene  took 
place  between  myself  and  my  valet  when  I  decided 
upon  renting  this  room.  I  have  had  Oswald  in 
my  employ  for  a  number  of  years.  He  is  a  most 
faithful  fellow,  is  that  Oswald  of  mine.  I  found 
him  in  Vienna  ;  the  Grand  Duke  Frederick  recom- 
mended him  highly,  and  so  I  took  him.  He  thinks 
this  caprice  of  mine  something  horrible." 

I  refrained  from  indorsing  the  views  of  the 
absent  Oswald.  The  grace,  grandeur,  and  ease  of 
Mr.  Studwell's  manner  still  disarmed  in  me  the 
least  suspicion.  He  looked,  acted,  and  spoke  as  a 
being  so  utterly  different  from  this  unwholesome 
environment,  that  I  readily  accepted  the  belief  of 
his  performing,  at  present,  a  sort  of  whimsical  mas- 
querade! And  the  oddity  of  such  a  proceeding 
rather  captivated  me  than  otherwise.  It  appeared 
to  be  such  a  perfectly  gentlemanly  piece  of  pictur- 
esqueness !  It  struck  such  a  new  note  in  the  hum- 


192  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

drum  drone  of  things !  Perhaps  my  mood  was  just 
then  of  the  properly  receptive  kind.  One  does  n't 
live  in  New  York  permanently,  as  a  rule,  without 
having  moments  of  melancholy  irritation  that  Fifth 
Avenue  hould  bisect  Twenty-Third  Street  at  so 
positive  a  right  angle.  The  element  of  fancy  is 
wholly  lacking  from  our  daily  existence.  I  felt 
almost  grateful  to  Mr.  Studwell,  as  I  looked  about 
the  prosaic  plainness  of  his  apartment,  and  realized 
with  what  a  romantic  glamour  he  had  suddenly 
clothed  it. 

Not  long  afterward,  however,  my  state  of  amused 
acquiescence  underwent  a  slight  shock.  I  am  not 
usually  given  to  observing  the  attire  of  men  —  or 
women  either  —  at  all  closely.  Not  to  know  what 
your  friends  wear,  I  have  generally  considered  a 
proof  that  they  are  well  dressed.  But  as  I  passed 
from  Mr.  Studwell's  chamber  the  light  of  the  adja- 
cent hall  struck  in  an  oblique  way  the  sleeve  of 
one  uplifted  arm.  I  could  not  fail  to  notice  that 
this  sleeve  was  glazed  in  the  unmistakable  manner 
of  a  coat  the  worse  for  time.  Could  it  be  that  I 
was  merely  confronted  by  another  phase  of  the 
young  gentleman's  caprice?  Had  he  chosen  to 
robe  himself  in  shabby  garments  because  bored  by 
the  spruceness  and  smartness  of  modern  fashion- 
able attire  ? 

"  By  the  way,"  he  said  to  me  a  little  later,  as  we 
stood  together  on  the  pavements,  not  far  from  his 
abode,  "is  it  so  very  difficult  to  gain  admission 
into  your  club,  —  the  Metropolitan  ?  " 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES,  193 

"Decidedly,"  I  answered,  laughing,  "for  the 
reason  that  over  three  hundred  candidates  are  now 
waiting  admission." 

"Ah  —  yes,"  mused  Mr.  Studwell,  looking  down 
and  stroking  his  mustache.  "  It  was  very  much 
the  same,  I  remember,  at  both  the  Reform  in 
London  and  the  Jockey  Club  in  Paris,  just  before 
I  joined  them." 

"You  are  fortunate  to  be  a  member  of  two 
such  excellent  clubs,"  I  replied  with  a  good  deal 
of  congratulatory  fervor.  The  forlorn  bedroom 
and  the  shiny  coat-sleeve  once  more  seemed  like 
the  agreeable  proofs  of  a  dainty  and  diverting  lit- 
tle escapade.  I  forgot  that  my  credulity  had  been 
for  an  instant  clouded.  "  If  you  are  to  remain  in 
New  York  only  a  year  or  so,"  I  resumed,  "  perhaps 
you  might  care  to  be  made  what  we  call  a  six- 
months'  visitor  at  the  Metropolitan.  In  that  case 
you  would  be  balloted  for  without  regard  to  those 
seeking  regular  membership.  I  would  gladly  be 
your  proposer,  if  you  so  desired." 

He  thanked  me  quite  warmly,  and  with  that  air 
of  exquisite  breeding  which  accompanied  all  his 
most  trifling  acts.  He  accepted  my  proposition, 
and  it  was  settled  between  us  that  I  should  at  once 
propose  his  name  as  that  of  a  six-months'  visitor. 
Just  as  I  held  out  my  hand  to  him  in  farewell  that 
evening,  he  said  to  me  with  a  genial  little  laugh  : 
"  I  am  going  to  ask  you  for  a  cigarette,  my  dear 
Manhattan.  Do  you  chance  to  have  one  ?  " 

I  echoed  his  laugh.     "  A  few  days  ago,"  was  my 


194  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

reply,  "  I  could  have  supplied  you  with  a  fat  pack- 
age of  them.  But  for  five  good  days  past  I  have 
renounced  them  as  vilely  pernicious.  Perhaps 
when  my  throat  becomes  even  moderately  well 
again,  I  may  be  rash  enough  to  resume  their  use. 
That,  I  find,  is  my  usual  stupid  course." 

"  Ah ! "  said  Mr.  Studwell,  "  then  you  have  not 
dealt  in  oaths,  like  myself  ?  " 

"  Dealt  in  oaths  !  "  I  repeated. 

He  nodded  with  mock  solemnity.  "I  have 
never  suffered  from  cigarette-smoking  until  I  came 
here.  There  is  something  in  this  climate,  I  fancy, 
which  makes  the  practice  especially  harmful. 
About  a  fortnight  since,  I  promised  myself  that  I 
would  not  spend  for  a  year  another  centime  —  I 
mean  another  dime  —  in  purchasing  the  wicked 
weed.  But  feeling  considerably  recovered  from 
its  ill  effects,  I  now  deplore  my  vow.  Really,  I  am 
going  to  request  that  you  will  buy  me,  Mr.  Man- 
hattan, with  your  own  money  (ah  !  there  is  the 
difficult  point,  showing  my  state  of  shameless  des- 
peration), a  package  of — well,  of  any  brand  you 
please.  All  brands  are  alike  to  me  now.  I  have 
reached  that  reckless  condition  when  one  has  no 
preferences." 

His  manner,  while  he  thus  spoke,  was  keenly 
humorous.  The  best  comedy  always  conveys,  I 
have  decided,  an  impression  of  sincerity.  We 
laugh  the  most  over  the  absurd  troubles  of  our 
fellow-creatures  when  we  are  convinced  of  their 
being  genuine,  in  spite  of  their  absurdity. 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  195 

"  You  shall  have  your  cigarettes  purchased  for 
you,"  I  responded,  "  provided  you  tell  me  your 
favorite  brand.  Yonder  I  see  a  tobacconist's  win- 
dow. Come,  now,  Mr.  Studwell.  I  have  an  en- 
gagement at  half-past  nine,  and  it  wants  twenty 
minutes  past  that  hour.  My  resolution  is  unalter- 
able, like  your  vow. " 

He  told  me  his  favorite  brand ;  and  presently, 
with  suppressed  laughter  at  the  mock-gravity  of 
his  thankful  expression,  I  handed  him  the  desired 
cigarettes.  We  soon  afterward  parted,  but  not 
until  I  had  assured  him  of  my  earnest  co-operation 
with  regard  to  his  proposed  club  visitorship. 

"What  a  quaintly  attractive  fellow  he  is!"  I 
thought,  as  I  sped  to  keep  my  engagement.  "  How 
charming  to  meet  a  man  out  of  the  old  beaten 
conventional  ruts !  His  long  foreign  residence  has 
given  him  this  air,  half  of  the  grand  ennuyg,  half 
of  the  genial  gentleman.  Of  course  that  cigarette 
business  was  mere  posing.  But  how  delightfully 
he  poses !  There  is  no  ostentation  about  it ;  it  is 
such  a  deliciously  sincere  sort  of  humbug !  After 
I  get  him  back  into  the  Metropolitan,  I  shall  narrate 
before  his  face  this  nonsensical  boutade  about  the 
wretched  room  in  Twenty-Fourth  Street." 

Two  days  later  I  received  a  brief  note  from 
Brockholst  Hyde,  requesting  me  to  call  upon  him 
for  urgent  reasons.  I  knew  Brockholst  Hyde  but 
slightly.  His  very  prominent  position  in  social  cir- 
cles could  not,  however,  have  escaped  me.  I  went  to 
his  fine  Madison  Avenue  residence  the  next  morn- 


196  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES 

ing  with  a  sense  of  wonderment  at  the  summons. 
I  was  conducted  to  the  library  of  this  gentleman, 
—  a  beautiful  apartment,  appointed  in  ebony  and 
silver,  with  row  after  row  of  books  along  its  walls, 
and  a  green  carpet,  not  only  resembling  moss,  but 
so  deadening  to  the  footstep  that  such  illusion  was 
almost  perfect. 

"  I  was  an  old  friend  of  your  father's,  Mr.  Man- 
hattan," said  Brockholst  Hyde,  rising  feebly  from 
an  immense  chair  to  greet  me.  "  I  am  very  glad 
indeed  to  see  his  son.  My  physicians  of  late  have 
forbidden  me  nearly  all  society.  But  I  have  some- 
what daringly  made  an  exception  in  your  case." 

It  struck  me,  while  I  looked  at  the  gentleman, 
that  a  greater  Physician  than  any  his  own  wealth 
would  have  power  to  employ  might  soon  veto  for 
him  society  of  every  description.  His  face  was 
haggard  from  evident  illness.  The .  hand  which 
motioned  me  to  seat  myself  at  his  side  trembled 
from  excessive  debility. 

"You  must  pardon  me,  Mr.  Manhattan,"  my 
host  began  as  soon  as  we  were  both  seated,  "for 
requesting  that  this  interview  shall  not  be  pro- 
longed. Physical  reasons  imperatively  command 
me  to  make  it  as  short  as  possible.  I  have  recently 
heard  that  you  have  proposed  Mr.  John  Morton 
Stud  well  as  a  six-months'  visitor  at  the  Metro- 
politan Club.  I  learned  it  from  my  friend,  Mr. 
Preston,  whom  you  doubtless  know,  and  who  is 
good  enough  to  drop  in  upon  me  during  my  hours 
of  illness.  Now,  I  must  beg  you  to  cancel  this 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  19? 

whole  matter.  I  must  beg  you  to  treat  it  as  if  it 
had  never  been.  Not  very  long  ago,  as  you  are 
aware,  I  introduced  Mr.  Studwell  into  the  Metro^ 
politan.  I  did  so  foolishly  and  rashly.  His  father, 
and  I  had  known  each  other  intimately  in  past 
years.  I  could  not  help  having  a  fondness  for 
the  son,  though  aware  that  he  had  already  spent  a 
handsome  fortune,  inherited  from  his  mother,  at 
the  gaming-tables  of  Europe.  For  his  dead  father's 
sake  I  have  done  everything  to  help,  to  rehabilitate 
Morton.  But  he  is  incorrigible,  he  is  not  to  be 
aided.  Every  dollar  that  I  have  supplied  him 
with  has  been  spent  in  gambling-dens  here.  That 
is  his  only  vice,  —  that  and  lying." 

"Lying!"  I  faltered. 

"  Oh,  yes !  But  perhaps  the  word  is,  after  all, 
severe.  I  read  an  article  by  a  certain  famous 
authority  on  brain-diseases,  not  long  ago,  and  dis- 
covered that  a  morbid  tendency  to  mendacious 
statement  was  a  form  of  well-known  insanity.  If 
that  be  fact,  Morton  Studwell  should  go  to  an 
asylum  forthwith.  Almost  nothing  that  he  says  is 
actual  truth.  His  patrician  European  friends  — 
princes,  dukes,  et  cetera  —  are  all  a  complete  myth. 
He  has  never  had  the  least  real  position  abroad. 
I  have  talked  with  him ;  I  have  waylaid  him ;  I 
have  caught  him  up;  and  I  now  conclude  that 
his  imagination  is  in  the  most  abnormal  state. 
There  is  the  precise  necessary  word,  —  'imagina- 
tion.' I  verily  believe  that  he  is  not  a  culpable 
falsifier." 


198  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Not  culpable,  Mr.  Hyde ! "  I  exclaimed  indig- 
nantly. "  Not  culpable,  when  he  told  me  that  he 
had  come  here  to  settle  a  litigated  inheritance ! 
Not  culpable,  when  he  talked  of  having  moved 
intimately  among  the  vieille  noblesse  of  France, 
of  having  fought  a  duel  with  a  French  duke,  of 
having  saved  the  life  of  an  Italian  prince  during 
a  squall  off  Guernsey !  Not  culpable,  when  "  — 

"  Stop ! "  interrupted  my  listener  with  a  hollow 
cough  that  at  once  roused  my  pity  and  repressed 
my  contradictory  ardor.  "  I  must  implore  of  you 
not  to  argue,  not  to  oppose.  I  claim  the  tyranny 
of  an  invalid.  I  insist  upon  your  respecting  my 
weakness  as  if  it  were  a  strength.  And  I  assert 
that  Mr.  Studwell  is  simply  a  young  man  who 
imagines.  He  imagines  vastly,  exorbitant^ ;  but 
he  does  not  imagine  maliciously.  I  have  studied 
him,  and  I  know.  If  he  had  possessed  the  literary 
gift,  I  think  he  might  have  made  a  remarkable 
novelist ;  not  of  the  realistic  school,  perhaps,  but 
the  romantic — decidedly  the  romantic.  Really, 
Mr.  Manhattan,  you  must  excuse  me  from  saying 
much  more.  But  what  I  do  wish  greatly  to  say  is 
that  you  had  better  cross  out  all  record  on  the 
books  of  the  Metropolitan  Club  which  concern 
your  having  proposed  Mr.  J.  Morton  Studwell 
there  for  a  six-months'  visitor.  It  would  never  do 
to  have  him  one.  He — well,  he  imagines  too  much. 
Imagination  in  the  right  place  is  very  good  and 
proper,  but "  — 

"But  the  Metropolitan  is  no  place  for  it,"  I 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  IMAGINES.  199 

broke  in  with  speed  and  not  a  little  irony.  "  You 
are  perfectly  correct,  Mr.  Hyde.  I  shall  accept 
your  counsel  and  act  upon  it  unhesitatingly." 

It  is  almost  needless  to  add  that  I  did  so  at  my 
earliest  opportunity. 


200  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XVI. 

THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAK  WITH  SAFETY. 

"You  don't  like  Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendleton,  do 
you?  "said  Marion  Bland  to  me  one  evening  at 
Daly's  Theatre.  We  were  seated  together  in  that 
lovely  home  of  mirth.  An  entr'acte  had  just  fol- 
lowed the  glittering  comedy  of  Lewis,  the  vivid 
piquancy  of  Ada  Rehan,  the  sly  fun  of  Mrs.  Gil- 
bert, the  crisp  elegance  of  John  Drew.  I  had 
made  one  of  a  most  agreeable  "theatre  party."  We 
had  dined  sumptuously  at  the  beautiful  home  of 
that  sparkling  little  widow,  Mrs.  Chalcourt,  and 
afterward  we  had  gone  in  a  merry,  careless  bevy 
to  Daly's  Theatre.  The  play  was  one  of  those 
adroit,  buoyant  things  that  one  wishes  to  be  critical 
about,  and  yet  cannot  help  liking  uncritically,  so 
novel  are  its  situations,  so  witty  .its  dialogue, 
so  genial  and  refined  its  atmosphere. 

This  theatre  always  puts  one  into  a  good  humor. 
I  had  been  put  into  a  good  humor.  But  Miss 
Bland  perilously  threatened  it  by  a  reference  to 
Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendleton. 

She  sat  in  one  of  the  boxes.  She  had  spoken  so 
loudly  during  the  performance,  that  not  to  hear  her 
shrill,  strident  voice  was  almost  not  to  attend  the 


THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAR,  ETC.       201 

perfect  art  of  the  actors.  She  is  very  stout ;  she 
indubitably  laces;  she  wears  bonnets  that  are 
horrors  of  millinery,  and  to-night  she  had  on  a 
bonnet  entirely  composed  of  small  sunflowers. 
Her  face  is  attractive.  It  has  three  distinct  chins, 
and  an  arch  of  nose,  white  as  marble,  whose  end 
nearly  touches  the  clean-cut  and  red-tinted  upper 
lip.  The  instant  you  look  upon  her,  you  know  that 
she  is  an  American.  She  might  be  lost  fcr  days 
in  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  and  at  once  identified  as 
an  American  by  any  wandering  party  of  rescuers 
who  might  chance  upon  her.  I  am  sure  that  her 
first  cry  for  bread  would  be  so  nasal,  so  acute,  so 
harshly  individual,  that  her  nationality  would 
admit  of  no  possible  dispute.  Her  age  is  surely 
fifty-five. 

She  is  one  of  my  aversions,  and  Marion  Bland 
knows  it.  Marion  has  no  aversions  herself.  She 
is  comprehensively  and  vastly  amiable.  She  is  not 
at  all  clever,  but  her  exquisite  sympathy  constantly 
makes  her  appear  so.  She  has  an  oval  face  of  deli- 
cate coloring,  and  two  deliciously  facile  dimples. 
When  she  smiles  upon  you,  all  criticism  is  sent  to 
the  winds.  You  feel  that  it  is  so  much  better  and 
rarer  to  be  able  to  smile  like  that  than  to  have 
hoards  of  opinions,  views,  impressions.  I  have 
never  known  anybody  who  did  not  like  Marion 
Bland.  To  be  her  enemy  would  mean  an  extraor- 
dinary kind  of  grudge,  like  a  quarrel  with 
sunlight,  or  a  misunderstanding  with  salubrious 
weather. 


202  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"I  don't  like  Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendleton,"  I  now 
said  to  my  companion,  "  and,  if  I  talked  at  present 
with  almost  anyone  else  in  the  world,  I  think  that 
I  could  make  my  reasons  for  this  dislike  perfectly 
clear ;  but  there  is  no  use  attempting  it  with  you. 
You  are  too  indulgently  genial." 

Marion  nodded.  "I  think  that  I  understand 
you,  however,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  doubt  it,"  was  my  reply.  "  If  you 
could  be  human  or  unsaintly,  you  would  probably 
share  my  opinions." 

Marion  gave  me  her  best  smile.  "Don't  you 
think,"  she  said  in  a  slow  and  somewhat  musing 
way,  "  that  Mrs.  Pendleton  has  a  very  good  heart  ?  " 

I  laughed.  "  That  is  so  like  you!"  I  said.  "I 
never  thought  at  all  about  Mrs.  Pendle ton's  heart. 
Her  manners  are  what  she  always  makes  me  remem- 
ber, whenever  her  face  dawns  upon  my  vision,  oi- 
lier name  upon  my  memory." 

"  Tell  me  why  you  so  disapprove  of  her,"  said 
Marion  Bland,  fixing  upon  me  a  pair  of  eyes  as 
brown  as  an  autumn  oak-leaf.  "I  suppose  you 
mean  that  she  is  vulgar." 

"  Vulgar !  "  I  repeated.  Well,  how  can  one  pos- 
sibly think  otherwise  ?  " 

"  She  was  a  Miss  Hudsonbank,  you  know,"  said 
Marion  seriously. 

"  Of  course  she  was,"  I  assented.  "  Is  not  the 
fact  of  her  having  been  a  Miss  Hudsonbank  per- 
petually recorded  to  her  credit  ?  Is  it  not  because 


THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAR,  ETC.       203 

of  her  having  been  a  Hudsonbank  that  she  is  per- 
mitted to  do  and  say  all  sorts  of  unconventional 
things?  If  she  had  been  a  Brown,  Jones,  Smith,  or 
Robinson,  she  would  long  ago  have  been  publicly 
execrated.  As  it  is,  with  her  money  and  her  pres- 
tige of  name,  she  prances  rough-shod  through  New 
York  society." 

"  All ! "  said  Marion  Bland  gently,  "  that  is  very 


severe," 


The  play  recommenced  soon  afterward,  and  when 
it  had  ended  our  little  company  became  crowded  in 
its  exit  against  that  of  Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendleton. 
The  lady  was  brought  face  to  face  with  Marion 
Bland  and  myself.  She  shook  hands  with  both 
of  us. 

"  Ain't  this  just  the  loveliest  theatre  in  all  the 
world  ?  "  she  began  excitedly  to  rattle.  "  I  guess 
they  had  better  put  their  wits  together  if  they 
want  to  beat  it  on  the  other  side.  I  just  feel  as  if 
I  could  take  that  Ada  Rehan  and  hug  and  kiss 
her.  Ain't  she  sweet?  I  almost  split,  laughing 
at  that  last  act.  We  came  round  ever  so  unex- 
pectedly. I  gave  a  little  dinner-party,  and  thought 
about  sending  for  a  box  only  just  at  the  last  min- 
ute. I  was  awfully  lucky  to  get  it.  Cousin  Tom 
Knickerbocker  had  engaged  it  for  to-night ;  and 
you  know,  of  course,  how  his  poor  dear  little  wife 
dropped  off  with  pneumonia  yesterday.  So,  as 
Tom  could  n't  go,  I  got  our  butler,  Patrick,  to 
secure  the  tickets.  I  dare  say  it  was  n't  just  the 


204  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

right  sort  of  thing  to  do,  as  Delia  Knickerbocker 
and  I  were  so  nearly  related.  Still,  good  gracious  ! 
a  person  can't  always  be  standing  on  ceremony.  I 
was  ever  so  fond  of  poor  Delia,  you  know;  she  was 
my  second-cousin  through  the  Biverdale  branch  of 
our  family.  You  're  looking  as  sweet  as  a  peach, 
Marion :  you  always  do.  I  says  to  ma,  the  other 
day  —  you  know  ma,  of  course,  dear  old  ma,  Mrs. 
Highbridge  Hudsonbank  —  I  says  to  her  the  other 
day,  'Ma,'  I  says,  'there  ain't  a  girl  anywheres  that 
I  think  as  much  of  as  I  do  of  Marion  Bland.' 
You  're  a  regular  trump,  Marion,  and  the  man  that 
gets  you  '11  get  a  wife  to  be  proud  of. — Now,  don't 
smirk  like  that,  Mr.  Manhattan ;  you  're  sceptical 
p'haps,  and  p'haps  you  ain't.  I  don't  know.  Mar- 
ion can  make  her  pick — can't  you,  Marion? — By 
the  way,  drop  in  for  a  cup  o'  tea  with  me  to-morrow 
at  'bout  five,  both  of  you.  'Tain't  anything  big, 
you  know.  Just  a  few.  Lizzie  Somerset 's  coming. 
How  funny  it  sounds,  don't  it,  to  say  Lizzie  Somer- 
set !  I  mean  Lizzie  Peekskill,  my  first  cousin,  you 
know,  who  married  Lord  Percy  Somerset  a  year 
or  so  ago.  Do  come,  both  o'  you." 

No  one  appeared  to  think  all  this  sort  of  thing 
vulgar.  It  was  spoken  in  a  voice  of  keen  shrill- 
ness ;  it  was  accompanied  by  quick  turns  of  the 
head  to  right  and  left ;  it  was  lacking  in  every 
vestige  of  ladylike  repose,  decorum,  or  tact.  And 
yet  no  one  appeared  to  think  it  vulgar.  It  was  so 
essentially  vulgar,  that,  if  Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendleton 


THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAR,  ETC.       205 

had  not  been  hedged  about  with  the  social  emi- 
nence of  the  Hudsonbanks,  lips  would  have  curled 
in  disdain  at  her  raw  crudeness.  As  it  was,  she 
could  be  vulgar  with  safety. 

Marion  Bland  and  I  both  accepted  her  invita- 
tion. It  was  by  no  means  an  ordinary  one. 
Hundreds  of  New  York  people  would  have  bowed 
before  her  to  secure  it.  Only  certain  guests  had 
been  asked,  and  these  were  of  the  kind  not  easily 
obtainable.  Mrs.  Pendleton's  bustling  vernacular 
"just  a  few"  had  meant  what  is  usually  termed 
by  fashionable  journals  the  cream  of  society. 
Ladies  were  seated  in  her  drawing-room  whose 
tyranny  as  regarded  their  visiting-lists  had  a  Ly- 
curgan  strictness.  These  ladies  were  scattered 
about  the  apartments  in  various  postures  of  patri- 
cian tranquillity.  They  interfolded  their  long- 
gloved  hands;  they  softly  moved  their  graceful 
heads ;  they  raised  or  lowered  their  discreet  eye- 
brows ;  they  spoke  in  voices  of  the  most  delicate 
modulation ;  they  smiled  with  a  disciplined  suavity, 
as  though  some  aristocratic  law  had  been  passed 
against  any  over-cordial  excesses  in  smiling.  They 
were  all  models  of  nicety,  of  serenity,  of  high-bred 
exactitude.  And  yet  they  seemed  wholly  oblivi- 
ous of  how  their  bluff,  hoydenish,  roturiere  hostess 
was  continually  violating  all  their  own  beloved 
principles  of  deportment. 

The  whole  experience  struck  me  as  so  amusingly 
quaint  that  I  forgot  my  sworn  antipathy  to  Mrs. 


206  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Pedigree  Pendleton.  I  had  the  desire  to  receive 
a  few  strong  and  biting  impressions  from  this  ex- 
traordinary social  free-lance  —  this  woman  who 
could  be  vulgar  with  such  a  positively  superb 
safety.  I  watched  my  chance,  and  addressed  Mrs. 
Pendleton  in  the  most  affably  courteous  tones  I 
could  employ. 

"You  have  a  very  charming  house,"  I  said; 
"but  doubtless  you  are  tired  of  being  told  that 
very  obvious  truth." 

I  was  at  once  disarrayed.  My  outworks  of 
refined  civility,  so  to  speak,  were  promptly  de- 
molished. Mrs.  Pendleton  answered  me  with  a 
rather  violent  blow  of  her  fan  on  my  left  arm. 

"  Oh,  you  get  right  along,  Mark  Manhattan  !  " 
she  cried,  with  a  joviality  that  came  little  short  of 
waking  my  awe.  "  Don't  you  come  any  o'  your 
ridic'lous  airs  over  me,  talkin'  'bout  my  house  as 
if  you  ain't  had  the  entrSe  to  it"  (the  French 
word  was  pronounced  excellently)  "  since  you 
were  a  youngster  in  frocks !  But  you  've  never 
come  here  till  to-day,  an'  I  just  want  to  tell  you, 
sir,  that  I  think  it's  pretty  shabby  you  have  n't." 

"  Shabby ! "  I  faltered.  "  Really,  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
I"  — 

The  fan  was  once  more  applied  to  my  person. 
It  is  my  belief  that  I  was  now  smitten  on  the  right 
arm  instead  of  the  left. 

"Oh,  don't  you  'really,  Mrs.  Pendleton '  me!  I 
ain't  goin*  to  stand  it.  1  knew  that  poor,  dear, 


THE  LADY  WttO  CAN  BE  VULGAR,  ETC.       207 

darling  mother  o'  yours  before  you  were  born. 
Yes,  I  did.  You  see,  I  give  myself  away,  as  they 
put  it  nowadays.  But  it 's  true,  an'  I  don't  care. 
I  tell  my  husband,  I  tell  him  if  lie  's  satisfied  with 
me  as  I  am,  I  guess  I  ain't  'fraid  to  pass  for  an 
old  woman  anywheres.  An'  you  ought  to  be 
ashamed,  Mark  Manhattan,  not  to  have  come  here 
more.  It 's  the  same  old  house  I  've  always  lived 
in  since  I  was  married,  —  and  that 's  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  more  or  less,  —  so  don't  say  you  did  n't 
know  it.  Besides,  this  Washington  Square  house 
was  ma's  long  beforehand,  and  everybody  knows 
where  the  old  Hudsonbank  family  mansion  is.  So 
don't  you  put  on  airs  and  say  you  could  n't  find 
me.  I  don't  believe  you  ever  came  to  Sally's  ball, 
when  I  brought  her  out  at  Delmonico's  in  '79 ; 
though  I  '11  give  in  if  you  say  you  were  there,  for 
it  was  such  a  big  crush,  and  I  got  so  flustered 
receivin',  that  p'haps  I  may  have  missed  you. 
But  still,  anyhow,  you  have  n't  been  sociable  a  bit. 
And  you  ought  to  have  remembered  me  as  your 
mother's  old  friend.  Besides,  we  're  related ;  the 
Manhattans  an'  the  Hudsonbanks  have  always 
been  sort  o'  cousins,  though  your  branch  is  n't  so 
near  us  as  the  Gracechurch  one  is.  Old  Betsy 
Manhattan,  your  great-grandmother  married  a 
ITudsonbank,  though.  Now,  Mark,  look  here.  I 
don't  want  to  talk  family;  I  guess  it's  better  not 
to  talk  it  just  now,  when  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry 
are  pushin'  and  scramblin'  to  get  into  everything 


208  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

that  's  given.  It  's  nothin'  nowadays  but 
money,  money.  I  d'clare,  I  get  just  sick  at  the 
way  things  are ! "  (Here,  if  I  mistake  not,  my 
right  shoulder  was  vehemently  assaulted  with  the 
fan.)  "'Pon  my  word,  I  don't  know  what  New 
York  is  coming  to  !  Some  people  say  I  'm  snob- 
bish. I  ain't  a  bit.  But  I  'm  opposed  to  havin'  a 
reg'lar  rabble  in  place  o'  the  good  old  stock.  We  're 
the  good  old  stock.  Don't  you  ever  forget  that. 
We  've  got  the  real  'ristocratic  blood  in  our  veins. 
Why,  I  d'clare  to  goodness,  I'd  rather  see  my 
Sally  a  corpse  than  have  her  marry  one  o'  those 
young  Wall  Street  upstarts  that  might  go  to  smash 
before  the  honeymoon  's  over.  There !  There  's 
Lord  Percy  at  last!  I  was  'fraid  he  could  n't 
get  here.  He  had  to  see  some  horrid  feller  from 
out  West  who 's  been  takin'  care  of  his  cattle-ranch 
there.  'Xcuse  me  a  minute." 

Away  darted  Mrs.  Pendleton.  My  glance  fol- 
lowed her  in  melancholy  dismay.  But  nobody 
else's  glance  so  followed  her.  She  was  the  lady 
who  could  be  safely  vulgar.  I  cannot  conceive 
why,  unless  because  of  the  devout  snobbery  which 
revered  her  position  and  name.  It  was  not  to  be 
questioned  that  her  deplorable  style  remained 
unnoticed ;  but  I  am  really  of  the  opinion  that  it 
always  remained  uncriticised.  She  made  people 
forget  what  she  was  because  of  recollecting  who 
she  was. 

I  left  her  entertainment  that  afternoon  in  com- 


THE  LADY  WHO  CAN  BE  VULGAR,  ETC.       209 

pany  with  old  Courtlandt  Canal.  I  suppose  Court- 
landt  Canal  must  be  sixty-five  if  a  day,  and  yet  he 
carries  his  years  as  he  carries  his  jaunty,  breezy 
little  gray  mustache,  nonchalantly  and  buoyantly. 
He  has  been  a  great  beau  in  his  time,  and  is  still 
very  popular.  He  is  flippant,  but  he  is,  after  a 
manner,  wise.  He  knows  his  narrow  world  well ; 
and  he  has  so  many  neat,  apt  things  to  say  about 
it,  that  you  are  sometimes  almost  led  to  regard  it 
as  a  wide  world. 

"  A  very  lovely  woman,  Mark,"  said  Courtlandt 
Canal  to  me  as  we  strolled  along  together.  He 
was  answering  a  bit  of  rather  bold  scorn  which  I 
had  delivered  concerning  Mrs.  Pedigree  Pendle- 
ton.  "  A  very  lovely  woman,  and  a  woman  you 
should  not  sneer  at." 

I  put  my  hand  on  his  arm,  thin  as  a  cane,  and 
hard  as  a  nut.  "  Good  heavens  !  "  I  said,  "  do  you 
not  think  her  stupendously  vulgar  ?  " 

My  companion  frowned,  and  shook  his  head  in 
brisk  negative.  "Vulgar?  "he  said  almost  stam- 
meringly .  "  Why  —  why  —  damn  it,  Mark,  do  you 
know  that  she  was  a  Hudsonbank  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  I  replied  dryly.  "  I  am  very  well 
aware  that  she  was  a  Hudsonbank.  I  ought  to  be." 

"Vulgar?"  continued  Courtlandt  Canal,  scan- 
ning my  face  with  his  dim,  senile,  kindly  eye. 
"  Not  at  all  —  not  at  all.  You  young  chaps  get 
very  funny  ideas.  Mrs.  Pendleton  —  ahem  !  —  be- 
longs— well,  we'll  say  that  she  belongs  to  a  past 


210  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

generation.  She  lias  n't  the  modern  way  of  speak- 
ing or  acting.  I  '11  —  I  '11  grant  you  that.  And, 
indeed,  now  that  you  remind  me  of  it,  I  should  say 
that — ahem !  — looked  at  from  a  —  a  modern  point 
of  -view,  she  might  even  be  called  —  well,  yes,  vul- 
gar. But  then,  my  dear  Mark,  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
recollect,  is  a  lady  who  "  — 

He  paused.  I  laughed  as  he  did  so,  and  ended 
his  sentence  for  him.  "  She  is  a  lady  who  can  be 
vulgar  with  safety,"  I  said. 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS, 


XVII. 

AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS. 

THERE  were  various  opinions  regarding  Mr. 
Somers  Cliffe  when  he  first  appeared  in  New  York 
societjr.  He  was  then  about  two  and  thirty.  He 
had  lived  in  England  perhaps  half  his  life.  Hav- 
ing been  graduated  at  Columbia  College  with  high 
honors,  he  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  matriculate 
at  Oxford,  and  from  twenty  till  twenty-four  he  had 
shone  with  a  good  deal  of  scholarly  brilliancy  at 
the  famed  university.  It  was  surely  a  most  excep- 
tional and  noteworthy  career ;  and,  as  Somers  Cliffe 
came  of  a  family  who  had  all  held  their  heads  high 
in  New  York  for  at  least  three  generations  or  so, 
a  good  deal  of  renown  accompanied  his  final  ren- 
tre'e  into  the  city  of  his  birth.  He  was  invited 
everywhere,  dined  excessively,  courted  assiduous- 
ly ;  but  after  a  little  while  he  had  failed  to  make 
himself  popular. 

He  had  not,  indeed,  the  appearance  of  seeking 
to  "  make  himself  "  anything.  His  look  and  man- 
ner were  the  very  refinement  of  gentlemanliness. 
I  have  never  seen  a  man  to  whom  the  term  of 
'gentlemanly  "  so  strikingly  and  promptly  applied. 
It  was  somehow  the  first  thing  you  thought  of 


212  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

after  you  had  become  conscious  of  him, — how 
gentlemanly  he  was.  He  dressed  with  extreme 
taste;  but  there  was  no  one  feature  of  his  cos- 
tume that  you  could  recall  as  having  made  you 
pass  this  judgment.  He  had  no  florid  excesses  in 
cravats,  no  decorative  subtlety  in  scarf-pins.  It 
was  all  perfect,  and  yet  you  could  not  divide  its 
details.  He  was  not  handsome,  though  his  firm, 
pure-cut  features,  his  blond,  curly  hair,  his  rip- 
pling mustache  of  a  slightly  darker  shade,  and  his 
tall,  lithe  figure,  narrowly  escaped  the  verdict  of 
manly  beauty.  I  think  he  would  have  been  called 
handsome  if  he  had  smiled  more  —  if  he  had  not 
shown,  in  some  peculiar  and  unexplainable  way, 
that  he  was  trying  very  decorously  and  duteously 
not  to  look  bored.  That  is  how  he  appealed  to 
me,  and  he  did  appeal  to  me  as  soon  as  I  met  him. 
He  was  doing  his  best  not  to  look  bored.  Later 
I  became  convinced  that  he  had  even  pondered  this 
question,  given  it  his  serious  attention,  and  put 
himself  rather  conscientiously  upon  his  guard 
concerning  it. 

Perhaps  it  explained  why  certain  people  grew  to 
dislike  him.  He  was  not  the  sort  of  man  who  is 
openly  disliked  in  New  York  society.  He  had 
come  over  to  attend  the  management  of  a  very 
large  estate,  left  him  on  the  sudden  death  of  a 
bachelor  uncle,  and  he  had  previously  been  pos- 
sessed of  an  ample  income.  In  a  city  like  New 
York,  where  money  is  reverenced  and  genuflected 
to,  and  where  its  possession  so  easily  gilds  a  tar- 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  EBAINS.  213 

nislied  repute  and  a  rusty  education,  a  man  like 
Somers  Cliffe  could  of  course  find  it  a  shield  and 
buckler  against  the  least  uncivil  hint. 

Nevertheless,  I  soon  discovered  that  gossip 
boiled  with  regard  to  him,  and  threw  up  some  of 
its  most  malodorous  fumes.  He  had  been  accused 
of  saying  (though  I  was  certain  he  had  too  much 
sense  and  tact  to  dream  of  saying  it)  that  he  had 
always  respected  the  memory  of  Washington  be- 
cause that  celebrated  patriot  had  had  the  advan- 
tage of  being  an  Englishman.  He  was  accused  of 
saying  (though  I  believed  the  charge  also  to  be  one 
of  spite  and  spleen)  that  America  was  a  very  short 
distance  from  England,  but  that  England's  dis- 
tance from  her  former  colonies  could  not  justly  be 
measured  on  any  known  chart.  I  am  confident 
that  these  and  similar  canards  were  all  of  the 
most  fabulous  origin.  I  have  a  good  many  hard 
things  to  record  against  Mr.  Somers  Cliffe  before  I 
shall  have  done  with  him ;  but  I  believe  in  giving, 
as  one  might  put  it,  Satan  the  credit  for  shapely 
bat's  wings  and  symmetrical  talons. 

One  of  his  worst  detractors  —  not  Satan's,  but 
Mr.  Cliffe's  —  was,  I  soon  discovered,  a  certain 
Mr.  Amos  Brooklynheight.  Of  course,  everybody 
knows  the  Brooklynheights ;  and  Amos,  with  his 
vast  volubility  and  his  little  feathery,  insignificant 
body,  does  his  best  to  perpetuate  their  ton.  Pri- 
vately, I  think  that  Amos  quite  fails,  and  that  it 
would  have  been  better  for  his  race  (sprung  from 
an  ambitious  butcher,  sneers  calumny,  less  than 


214  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

seventy  years  ago)  if  the  volatile  and  expansive 
Amos  had  never  been  born.  I  wonder  if  the  mar- 
tinets of  etymology  will  permit  me  to  coin  a  new 
word.  I  want  very  much  to  coin  it  (so  much  is 
coined  nowadays,  that,  though  spurious,  passes  cur- 
rent), and  I  offer  humble  apologies  to  any  stray 
pundit  whose  spectacled  eye  might  chance  upon 
my  writing.  It  gives  me  pleasure,  therefore, 
to  write  Amos  Brooklynheight  down  as  an  Ameri- 
co-maniac.  I  think,  with  a  sort  of  paternal  fond- 
ness, now  that  I  have  written  the  word,  that  it 
looks  quite  as  correct  as  "Anglo-maniac,"  which 
the  usual  newspaper  fag  knows  so  well,  and  hurls 
at  us  so  often. 

Well,  Amos  was  that  —  I  won't  write  the  loved 
derivative  again,  proud  as  I  feel  of  having  created 
it.  He  soon  made  up  his  mind  that  Somers  Cliffe 
was  abominable.  And  he  went  about,  with  his 
drooping  shoulders  and  his  short  stature  and  his 
pug-nose  and  his  ethereal  slimness,  circulating  all 
sorts  of  slanderous  stories  about  his  aversion. 

"  You  don't  like  Somers  Cliffe,"  I  said  to  him 
on  a  certain  evening  at  the  supper-table  of  the 
Harlems',  just  before  one  of  the  most  unruly  and 
coltish  cotillons  that  ever  taxed  my  politeness  as  a 
leader.  "  Pray,  why  don't  you  like  him  ?  " 

Amos  stood  on  his  tiptoes.  He  was  constantly 
standing  that  way  when  he  addressed  people  of 
ordinary  size,  because  his  gushes  of  feeling  seemed 
to  demand  it.  He  snapped  his  tiny  black  eyes  at 
me,  and  at  once  said : 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS.  215 

"  No,  I  don't  like  him.  And  I  guess  there  ain't 
many  people  that  do."  Amos  was  a  Wall  Street 
broker,  by  the  way.  I  have  heard  many  eccen- 
tricities of  speech  from  Wall  Street  brokers,  and 
many  marvels  of  slang,  but  it  is  my  impression, 
that,  for  solid  vulgarity,  little  prattlesome  Amos 
surpasses  them  all.  "  Look  here,  Mark,"  he  rat- 
tlingl}T  proceeded.  "  I  ain't  a  Brooklynheight  for 
no  thin'.  Ev'rybody  knows  who  I  am,  don't  you 
make  any  mistake.  I  'm  talkin'  to  a  man  that 
knows  me,  ain't  I  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  of  course." 

"  Very  well.  I  guess  my  people's  been  in  New 
York  s'ciety  as  long  as  ever  the  Cliffes  were  there. 
Ain't  I  right?  Well,  I  ain't  any  slouch,  an'  you 
can  just  bet  yer  bottom  dollar  that  way  !  " 

This  was  enigmatical.  It  had  an  CEdipean 
flavor:  it  suggested  the  Sphinx  herself.  I  was 
not  sure  that  I  at  all  knew  what  a  "slouch" 
meant.  But  I  hazarded  an  assumed  acquaintance 
with  the  word.  Since  the  lively  Amos  had  de- 
clared that  he  was  not  it,  I  ventured  to  think  that 
it  was  something  which  correct  people  did  not 
desire  to  be. 

"  Oh,  no  !  "  I  acquiesced,  "you  're  — you  're  not, 
of  course.  Oh,  no  !  of  course." 

"Well,"  retorted  Amos,  still  on  tiptoe,  "I  ain't 
goin'  to  have  that  feller  treat  me  's  if  I  was  the 
poor  relation  of  his  footman,  am  I  ?  Wat 's  he, 
anyhow,  comin'  over  t'  this  glorious  country,  and 
settin'  himself  up  for  an  Englishman  ?  " 


216  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"Does  he  set  himself  up  for  an  Englishman?  " 

"Dorit  he  !  You  can  jus'  bet  he  does !  "  And 
then  followed  from  the  lips  of  the  indignant  Amos 
(who  must  be  so  invaluable  in  that  howling  Stock 
Exchange,  because  he  is  nearly  always  indignant 
about  something  or  somebody)  a  torrent  of  vitu- 
peration regarding  Somers  Cliffe. 

Of  course,  I  minded  no  more  what  this  testy 
little  Americo-maniac  said  about  his  last  object  of 
national  hatred  than  I  would  have  minded  the 
strident  chirp  of  one  of  our  own  transpontine 
katydids.  If  I  am  not  wrong,  it  was  on  that  same 
evening  —  after  the  Harlems'  horrid  prancing 
german  —  that  I  drank  a  late  brandy-and-soda 
with  Cliffe  at  the  club.  I  got  to  like  him  better 
then,  as  I  got  to  like  him  better  every  fresh  time 
that  we  met  and  talked  together. 

"He  is  an  Anglo-maniac,"  I  told  myself,  "but  he 
is  one  of  a  wholly  new  type  in  this  country.  He 
is  an  Anglo-maniac  with  brains.  We  see  them  by 
scores  here,  but  they  are  all  the  same  —  as  scores 
of  other  animals  usually  are.  They  simper,  and 
twirl  canes,  and  drawl,  and  are  cumulatively 
idiots.  To  be  an  Anglo-maniac  has  got  to  mean, 
of  late,  being  an  idiot.  When  we  hear  the  charge 
flung  at  a  fellow-creature,  we  are  at  once  prepared 
for  fatuity.  But  Somers  Cliffe,  although  merit- 
ing the  charge,  is  widely  removed  from  fatuity : 
therefore  he  interests  me ;  and  therefore,  as  a 
new  individuality,  an  unexpected  personage,  I  am 
anxious  to  observe  him,  to  investigate  him,  to 
classify  him." 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC   WITH  BRAINS.  217 

Fate  soon  afterward  gave  me  this  chance.  I  at- 
tended a  dinner-party  at  Delmonico's,  composed 
wholly  of  men,  where  the  superabundant  wines 
put  us  all  into  a  good  humor,  and  the  finesse  of  the 
cookery  made  digestion  a  delight.  Somers  Cliffe 
was  among  the  guests  at  this  dinner,  and  chance 
placed  us  side  by  side.  We  talked  of  many  things, 
.and  in  all  that  he  said  I  perceived  no  trace  of  the 
superciliousness  which  Amos  Brooklynheight  had 
denounced.  At  last  I  inquired  of  him : 

"  Shall  you  go  abroad  soon  again  ?  " 

He  gave  a  perceptible  start,  and  his  mild  blue 
eyes  swept  my  face  in  a  rather  searching  way.  "  I 
sometimes  tell  myself,"  he  slowly  answered,  "  that 
I  shall  never  cross  the  ocean  again." 

Of  all  possible  answers,  this  from  Somers  Cliffe 
was  the  most  sharply  unexpected.  "  Never  cross 
again!"  I  exclaimed.  "Why,  what  can  have 
suggested  the  making  of  such  a  resolve?" 

He  thoughtfully  watched  a  curl  of  smoke  from 
his  own  cigar,  that  had  drifted  round  a  garnet 
wineglass,  and  was  making  a  little  nimbus  over  it, 
as  though  it  were  the  goblet  of  some  Olympian 
feast.  Then  he  lifted  his  gaze  once  more,  and  let 
it  meet  mine  with  a  most  serious  directness. 

"  To  go  back,  and  yet  not  to  go  back  feeling  that 
I  am  permanently  to  remain  there,"  he  said,  "  is 
always  a  pain  for  me." 

I  smiled.  "And  you  cannot  permanently  re- 
main?" 

"  No.    My  affairs  here  render  it  impossible.      I 


218  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cannot  trust  them  to  agents  or  clerks.  There  are 
two  or  three  charitable  institutions,  as  you  may 
perhaps  have  heard,  which  were  founded  by  my 
late  uncle,  and  whose  superintendence  I  consid- 
ered a  sacred  charge.  You  can  form  no  idea  of 
the  responsibility,  the  care,  the  vigilance,  which 
these  entail." 

I  smiled  again,  and  this  time  with  a  touch  of 
sarcastic  commiseration,  as  I  said,  "  So,  then,  you 
will  be  doomed  to  the  hard  fate  of  living  here?" 

"  I  am  afraid  it  is  inevitable." 

"  And  you  do  not  like  it  here  ?  " 

"  If  I  told  you  how  little  I  like  it  here,"  he  an- 
swered, again  looking  at  me  earnestly,  "  I  am 
afraid  you  would  feel  personally  displeased." 

"  Oh,  I  never  resent  any  hard  tilings  said  aoout 
America,"  I  laughed,  "  unless  some  one  who  is  not 
an  American  says  them.  If  you  told  me  how  little 
you  like  it  here,  Mr.  Cliffe,"  I  went  on,  "  I  should 
by  no  means  feel  personally  displeased.  But  I  am 
certain,  that,  if  you  were  to  tell  me  why  you  like  it 
so  little,  I  should  be  a  good  deal  interested." 

"  And,  pray,  for  what  reason  ?  "  he  swiftly  que- 
ried, with  his  English  accent  and  his  graceful 
English  way  of  leaning  the  body  forward. 

"  Because,"  I  said,  "  it  is  my  impression  that 
you  are  able  to  make  out  a  very  good  case,  as  the 
lawyers  phrase  it.  I  should  like  very  much  to 
hear  your  frank  opinion  of  this  country." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  I  have  never  put  it  in 
words,"  he  said.  "I  don't  know  that  I  could; 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS.  219 

and  I  feel  convinced,  that,  if  I  did,  you  would  not 
be  inclined  to  hear  me  through." 

"  Then  I  should  be  simply  showing  myself  a 
worthless  partisan.  The  man  who  will  listen  only 
to  praise  of  America's  virtues  does  not  deserve  to 
benefit  by  them.  He  should  be  punished  for  his 
prejudice  by  having  some  of  her  faults  rise  up  and 
hurt  him." 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Mr.  Cliffe  absently,  as  though 
he  were  thinking  of  something  else.  "I  say  I"  he 
presently  continued,  "  would  you  be  able  to  stand 
hearing  America  pitched  into  most  mercilessly  ?  " 

"Yes,"  I  answered.  "  I  think  I  could  if  you  did 
the  pitching-in." 

"  Oh !  that 's  very  kind  of  you,  I  'm  sure." 

"  Not  at  all.  It 's  rather  selfish,  on  the  whole. 
I  suppose  you  know  this  new  word, '  Anglo-maniac,' 
which  the  newspapers  are  popularizing,  and  which 
people  are  beginning  to  use  as  glibly  as  if  it  were 
a  century  old.  Well,  of  all  the  Anglo-maniacs 
whom  I  have  thus  far  met  in  life,  I  have  seen  but 
one  who  possessed  brains.  All  the  rest  have  been 
distinct  and  complete  fools.  I  hope,  by  the  way, 
that  you  will  pardon  me  for  suggesting  that  you 
are  an  Anglo-maniac.  And  let  me  add  that  you 
are  the  exception  to  which  I  referred." 

This  appeared  by  no  means  to  displease  Mr. 
Cliffe,  though  its  candor  was  perhaps  a  trifle  uncivil 
in  me,  considering  our  limited  acquaintance.  But 
somehow  from  that  evening  our  acquaintance 
ripened  rather  speedily  into  an  intimacy.  Still, 


220  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Somers  Cliffe  never  alluded  to  his  own  coun- 
try ;  and  I,  being  perhaps  a  little  piqued  that  he 
should  have  repelled  my  endeavors  to  hear  his  true 
views  frankly  expressed,  forbore  from  asking  him 
a  single  question  that  touched  on  this  subject. 
Meanwhile,  knowing  him  better,  I  knew  better 
how  intensely  English  he  was.  His  whole  life 
seemed  modelled  on  a  transatlantic  plan.  It 
would  be  foolish  for  me  to  attempt  a  specification 
of  the  hundred  and  one  minor  details  to  which  I 
now  allude.  The  more  intimate  I  became  with 
him,  the  more  my  respect  for  his  mind  and  char- 
acter deepened.  I  found  myself  constantly  listen- 
ing to  him  with  a  desire  for  actual  enlighten- 
ment,—  a  wish  to  be  set  squarely  and  safely 
right  on  certain  vexed  and  baffling  questions.  I 
suppose  that  any  man  whose  life  has  chiefly  been 
passed  in  the  haute  volSe  of  New  York  circles  may 
be  said  to  possess  a  meagre  experience  of  edu- 
cated people.  However,  judged  by  this  sort  of  ex- 
perience, it  seemed  to  me  that  Somers  Cliffe  was 
the  most  efficiently  and  thoroughly  educated  man 
I  had  ever  met. 

One  evening,  while  we  were  smoking  together 
in  my  library,  I  said  to  him  with  rather  bold 
abruptness : 

"  Upon  my  word,  Cliffe,  it  is  a  shame  you  have 
to  live  here." 

I  think  for  a  moment  he  suspected  me  of  a  ran- 
dom, slurring  satire.  Doubtless  he  had  heard 
some  of  those  tales  afloat  about  him  —  or  at  least 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS.  221 

had  been  told  by  one  or  two  sweet,  kind  friends 
that  they  existed.  His  cheek  had  slightly  flushed, 
I  observed,  as  he  now  replied,  without  a  tinge  of 
annoyance  in  his  smooth  tones : 

"  Pray,  why  do  you  think  it  a  shame  that  I  have 
to  live  here?" 

"  Oh,  come,  now ! "  I  replied,  "  don't  take  me  up 
quite  so  sharply." 

"  But  your  comment  was  a  very  expressive  one 
—  and  inclusive  as  well." 

"  I  know  that  you  abominate  living  in  Amer- 
ica," I  laughed.  "There,  old  fellow,  that  is  still 
more  expressive  and  inclusive.  But  you  would 
never  give  me  the  reasons  for  either  your  prefer- 
ence or  your  antipathy." 

"  The  reasons !  "  murmured  ClifTe.  He  was 
buried  in  a  tufted  arm-chair  of  black  velvet, 
against  which  his  blond  head,  gleamed  in  the  red 
flashes  of  a  near  fire.  I  wonder  why  it  is  that 
blond  hair  always  has  so  patrician  a  suggestion 
when  it  is  near  black  velvet.  I  cannot  explain 
why,  but  I  am  convinced  of  the  fact. 

"  The  reasons ! "  again  murmured  Cliffe,  who 
had  been  staring  straight  into  the  red  crumbled 
logs  of  my  wood  fire.  He  suddenly  turned  and 
looked  at  me.  "  Why,  there  are  hundreds,  thou- 
sands of  reasons ! " 

"  For  liking  England  better  than  America  ? " 
I  asked. 

"Yes." 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  a  few  of  them,"  I  said. 


£22  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"Some  of  them  are  very  plain  and  positive. 
Others  are  so  elusive  and  shadowy  that  they 
escape  you  from  hour  to  hour.  The  truth  is,  my 
dear  Manhattan,  we  call  ourselves  a  country,  and 
we  are  not  a  country  at  all." 

(At  last !  I  was  finally  to  hear  Anglo-mania 
plead  its  own  cause  from  the  lips  of  Mr.  Somers 
Cliffe,  as  I  had  wanted  to  hear  for  so  long.) 

"Not  a  country!"  I  repeated.  "What  are  we, 
then?" 

"A  colony.  I  assure  you  that  this  is  true. 
Every  feature  of  our  civilization  is  distinctly  colo- 
nial. Our  government,  our  art,  our  literature,  — 
they  all  belong,  like  our  language,  to  other  lands. 
We  might  just  as  well  concede  it,  for  it  is  irrefut- 
ably true.  There  is  nothing  original  about  us 
except  our  vulgarity.  As  soon  as  we  become 
refined,  we  are  European.  Unconsciously  to  our- 
selves, we  speak  with  contempt  of  each  other's  sins 
against  taste  and  good-breeding  as  '  so  American.' 
We  wave  our  star-spangled  banner,  (and,  by  the 
way,  what  a  flashy,  paltry  epithet  '  star-spangled  ' 
is !)  and  declare  great  things  concerning  our  land, 
on  the  4th  of  every  July.  But  the  truth  is,  Man- 
hattan, that  we  are  an  immense  failure.  I  do  not 
know  a  single  prophecy  that  America  has  ful- 
filled, a  single  great  promise  that  she  has  kept. 
She  was  to  be  a  grand  improvement  on  the  feudal- 
isms and  bitter  social  inequalities  of  Europe.  In 
New  York,  Boston,  and  all  her  larger  cities,  to-day, 
caste  is  digging  deeper  intrenchrnents,  building 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITH  BRAINS.  223 

stouter  defences.  They  call  it  the  aristocracy  of 
money.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  Money  has 
always  fed  and  helped  all  aristocracies.  It  is  the 
old,  patrician, '  I  am  born  above  you '  impulse,  and 
it  is  nothing  more  or  less.  Look  at  our  political 
life.  It  is  one  huge  scandal  and  mockery.  We 
cannot  urge  our  youth  as  an  excuse  for  the  sad 
lack  of  morale  there,  for,  indeed,  we  are  not  young 
at  all.  We  are  very  old  in  precedent,  in  the 
power  to  profit  by  example.  We  had  all  the 
hideous  wrongs  of  Europe  for  centuries  to  warn 
us.  We  started  out  magnificently,  and  what  have 
we  accomplished?  A  weak  and  miserable  imita- 
tion, nothing  more.  We  are  wholly  without  inde- 
pendence of  thought,  though  we  have  a  monstrous 
assumption  of  it,  a  loud  braggadocio,  a  terrible 
swagger.  Foreign  plays  fill  our  theatres,  foreign 
books  crowd  our  libraries,  for  whose  production 
we  will  not  give  their  authors  even  a  decent  wage ; 
foreign  garments  are  worn  by  us  with  an  eager 
preference ;  foreign  manners  are  cultivated  by  us 
with  a  slavish  allegiance.  I  cannot  conceive  why 
we  are  so  boastful,  since  we  are  so  stupidly  un- 
original. Not  long  ago  a  great  statue  was  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  name  of  the  great  French 
nation,  and  our  Congress  has  disgraced  itself  by 
making  no  appropriation  toward  the  erection  of  a 
proper  pedestal.  We  rush  abroad  in  droves  every 
year,  and  stare  at  famed  pictures,  chatter  in  stately 
cathedrals.  But  we  return  with  no  desire  to  have 
the  same  on  these  shores  —  no  national  or  muni- 


224  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cipal  desires,  I  mean,  to  make  art  a  culture  here, 
a  purpose,  an  illuminative  project.  It  is  only 
necessary  for  one  to  travel  in  our  West  for 
one  to  realize  how  we  revel  in  ugliness.  But 
we  revel  also  in  vanity.  Some  day,  when  we 
are  really  a  country  and  not  a  colony,  we  may 
learn"  — 

"  Oh,  for  Heaven's  sake,  stop ! "  I  cried,  jumping 
up  from  my  seat.  "  I  can't  let  you  go  on  like  this ! 
I  really  can't ! " 

Cliffe  threw  his  cigar  into  the  fire.  "I  knew 
you  would  grow  wrathful,"  he  said  with  his  cool, 
suave  smile,  "if  I  ever  told  you  my  reasons  for 
detesting  this  country ;  and  that  is  why  I  have 
delayed  doing  it  for  so  long  a  time." 

"  I  am  not  wrathful ! "  I  exclaimed.  "  And  you 
must  pardon  my  telling  you  in  my  own  house  that 
I  think  anger  would  be  a  very  foolish  answer  to 
sentiments  as  unsound  as  these." 

"Which  plainly  shows  one  that  you  are  very 
angry  indeed,"  said  Cliffe  with  perfect  composure. 
"On  the  whole,  I  am  rather  sorry,"  he  proceeded, 
"  for  I  have  a  great  many  more  things  to  say  about 
this  country,  and  "  — 

"Then  in  God's  name  don't  say  them!"  I  broke 
in,  dropping  back  into  my  arm-chair.  .  .  . 

He  did  not.  We  are  still  the  best  of  friends, 
but  we  never  discuss  international  questions. 
Some  day  we  shall,  however.  I  feel  myself  slowly 
warming  for  a  great  fight.  I  am  collecting  my 


AN  ANGLO-MANIAC  WITII  BRAINS.  225 

weapons.  Still,  I  hope  it  will  be  a  fight  ending  in 
friendly  truce.  I  am  afraid  that  it  may  not  be, 
but  I  sincerely  hope  it  will ;  for  I  am  honestly  and 
admiringly  fond  of  Somers  Cliffe,  the  Anglo-maniac 
with  brains. 


226  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XVIII. 

THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD. 

"  WHY  does  that  Louisa  Lowther  go  out  ? " 
people  had  almost  grown  tired  of  asking.  And 
since  I  have  first  clearly  learned  who  and  what 
"  that  Louisa  Lowther  "  is,  I  have  felt  inclined  to 
echo  the  question.  When  I  try  to  recall  having 
first  met  her,  I  find  that  she  seems  to  have  dawned 
upon  me  gradually,  through  a  series  of  rather 
vague  apparitions.  I  may,  indeed,  say  that 
I  never  positively  observed  her  until  she  had 
become  to  me  an  unconsciously  familiar  figure. 
It  then  struck  me  that  she  had  been  present  at 
numerous  entertainments  which  I,  too,  had  at- 
tended. I  had  a  sense  of  having  seen  her  stand 
or  sit,  walk  or  talk,  ever  since  I  had  first  gone 
at  all  into  gay  circles.  She  was  somehow  a  factor 
of  gay  circles.  I  discovered  that  few  festal  recol- 
lections were  complete  without  her.  I  do  not 
mean  that  I  ever  met  her  at  dinner-parties,  large 
or  small,  but  rare  was  the  tea  or  ball  that  failed  to 
attract  Miss  Louisa  Lowther. 

She  was  inclined  to  be  thin,  with  a  restless,  viva- 
cious face.  Indeed,  there  looked  from  her  pale 
blue  eyes  an  eagerness  that  was  unwholesome  in 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD.     227 

its  fervor.  She  appeared  to  be  wanting  something 
very  much  indeed,  and  always  glancing  round 
with  a  brisk  flutter  of  the  eyelids  to  see  if  it  were 
not  coming.  Presumably  it  never  came ;  but,  if  it 
had  been  a  partner  for  the  german,  it  would  at 
least  now  and  then  have  come,  though  by  no 
means  always.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that 
Miss  Lowther  was  not  a  success  in  society ;  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  people  avoided  her.  I 
began  to  wonder  just  why  they  did  so,  as  I 
watched  her.  Of  course,  I  must  here  mention  that 
the  fact  of  her  father's  moderate  income  had  fully 
transpired.  But  several  girls  whose  fathers  had 
moderate  incomes  were  not  at  all  unpopular. 
Then,  on  the  other  hand,  Miss  Lowther,  though 
not  strikingly  fair,  was  by  no  means  notably  plain. 
As  I  rather  covertly  regarded  her,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  society  ought  to  consider  her  a  nice  girl.  But 
society  evidently  did  nothing  of  the  sort.  She 
went  out  incessantly,  yet  the  only  persons  who 
appeared  to  regard  her  presence  with  anything 
like  actual  concern  were  those  male  prowlers  about 
the  borderland  of  frivolity  who  had  no  visible  motive 
for  accepting  invitations  except  the  drearily  ego- 
tistic one  of  showing  that  they  had  received  them. 
More  than  once  I  have  seen  Miss  Lowther,  when 
I  myself  was  leader  of  a  german,  slip  up  at  the 
last  moment,  clinging  to  some  partner  whom  she 
had  just  providentially  secured.  Her  eyelids,  on 
these  occasions,  would  flutter  more  than  ever;  her 
liberal  and  continual  smile  would  have  brightened. 


228  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

To  regard  her  was  to  feel  sure  that  she  tingled 
with  achievement,  if  not  precisely  victory.  And 
what  a  petty  victory  it  was  —  especially  when  one 
bore  in  mind  the  philosophic  truth  that  all  triumphs 
of  the  ball-room  are  petty!  How  small  did  the 
success  of  this  self-gratulating  girl  look  to  the 
belle  with  her  seven  bouquets  and  her  score  of 
admirers ! 

Before  seeking  presentation  to  Miss  Lowther,  I 
made  a  few  tentative  inquiries  concerning  her. 
My  proposed  informant  was  an  unfortunate  selec- 
tion. I  might  have  known  that  Amanda  Pinck- 
ney  would  have  taken  ex  parte  views  on  the 
subject  of  her  unvalued  sister.  Amanda,  with  her 
proud,  cold,  white  face,  her  shining  coils  of  coal- 
black  hair,  and  the  facile  sneer  that  hovers  round 
her  thin,  pink  lips,  has  about  as  much  icy  snobbery 
in  her  nature  as  one  human  soul  can,  well  accom- 
modate. It  is  a  trait  of  those  Pinckneys  that 
they  none  of  them  wear  their  good  birth  with  the 
least  grace ;  they  are  constantly  flirting  it  at  you 
as  if  it  were  a  fat  purse,  and  they  were  people  of 
yesterday.  "  The  accident  of  birth,"  in  their  case, 
is  more  like  a  calamity.  If  their  blood  is  blue  in 
one  sense,  I  cannot  help  fancying  that  it  is  not 
red  in  another.  Miss  Amanda  had  very  decided 
opinions  regarding  Miss  Lowther.  She  curved 
her  long  throat  a  little,  looking  down  at  a  corsage 
of  leafless  white  camellias,  —  cold  flowers,  that,  as 
they  rose  and  fell  with  the  breathings  of  her  cold 
breast,  made  me  think  of  snow  fallen  upon  snow. 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD.     229 

"I  don't  see  why  the  girl  should  be  liked,  Mr. 
Manhattan,"  she  said.  "In  the  first  place,  you 
know,  she  is  quite  nobody." 

"  I  did  not  know,  Miss  Pinckney.  And,  indeed, 
I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  arrybody  can 
be  'quite  nobody.'  It  seems  like  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

Amanda,  who  is  not  at  all  intelligent,  having 
only  the  brilliancy  of  ice,  looked  as  if  she  did  not 
at  all  understand.  However,  if  she  had  under- 
stood, I  am  certain  that  she  would  have  considered 
my  demurrer  worth  nothing  except  her  civil  dis- 
dain. 

"It  is  odd  how  the  girl  got  about,"  she  pro- 
ceeded. "I  have  heard  that  she  pushed  and 
strained  to  a  frightful  extent  several  years  ago. 
This  is  about  her  fifth  season.  Of  course,  she  goes 
everywhere  —  that  is,  to  all  the  large  affairs.  I 
wish  that  she  did  n't.  I  suppose  everybody  wishes 
that  she  did  n't.  Now  that  she  has  managed  to 
thrust  herself  in,  however,  no  one  has  the  courage 
to  drop  her." 

"  Poor  girl !  "  I  murmured. 

"Why  do  you  call  her  that?"  queried  Miss 
Amanda.  "  I  don't  see  any  occasion  for  lavishing 
pity  upon  her." 

"  To  me  there  is  great  occasion  for  pity,"  I 
returned.  "If,  as  you  say,  she  has  pushed  and 
strained  to  a  frightful  extent,  her  wasted  effort  is 
all  the  more  deplorable." 

Amanda  fluttered  her  white  eyelids  objectiugly. 


230  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  I  don't  just  see  what  you  mean  by  wasted  effort," 
she  said  dryly.  "  Success  has  crowned  it  in  a  most 
liberal  manner,  I  should  imagine." 

"  Success ! "  I  repeated.  "  You  don't  really  con- 
nect the  word  with  that  ill-fated  girl!  She  has 
gained  nothing,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  except  tolera- 
tion. The  potentates  merely  agree  not  to  discoun- 
tenance her,  and  that  is  all.  And  she  appears  very 
grateful  for  this  left-handed  courtesy,  one  must 
admit." 

"  She  ought  to  be  grateful,"  said  Amanda  Pinck- 
ney  with  freezing  curtness. 

"  Good  gracious !  "  I  exclaimed ;  "you  speak  of 
her  as  if  she  were  an  adopted  pauper."  I  now 
looked  in  Miss  Lowther's  direction.  "  She  seems 
to  have  very  good  manners,"  I  pursued. 

"They  might  be  better." 

"  So  might  yours,  my  lofty  lady,"  I  thought,  yet 
did  not  say.  But  aloud  I  went  on,  "She  has 
nothing  at  all  objectionable  about  her  appearance : 
indeed,  I  consider  her  quite  attractive ;  I  think  it 
strange  that  she  should  be  so  shunned.  Can  you 
tell  me  why  she  is  shunned?  why  she  is  not  more 
sought  by  the  men  ?  why  she  should  be  the  unac- 
countable failure  that  I  begin  to  perceive  she  is  ? " 

Miss  Pinckney  gave  a  chill  smile.  "I  have  not 
endeavored  to  account  for  her  unpopularity,"  she 
replied, "  and,  for  that  matter,  I  am  not  sufficiently 
interested  in  it  to  do  so." 

This  notable  bit  of  hauteur  wholly  failed  to 
impress  me.  A  little  later  I  secured  an  introduc- 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD.     231 

tion  to  Miss  Lowtlier.  To  my  surprise,  she  received 
me  with  an  almost  demoralized  mien. 

"I  —  I  am  so  very  glad  to  —  to  meet  you,  Mr. 
Manhattan,"  she  said  excitedly.  She  had  been 
seated  a  few  moments  before,  but  she  had  risen 
during  our  mutual  introduction,  and  she  now 
remained  standing.  "Of — of  course,  I  know  all 
about  you.  How  could  I  help  doing  so  ?  "  Here 
the  young  lady  gave  a  highly  nervous  little  laugh. 
"  You  are  such  a  leader,  you  know.  It  was  very 
kind  of  you  —  exceedingly  kind." 

"  I  don't  think  that  I  quite  understand  in  what 
way  I  have  been  kind,"  was  my  rather  astonished 
answer.  Miss  Lowther  started,  and  then  put  her 
head  exaggeratedly  sideways.  "  Oh !  now  I  am 
sure  you  're  not  in  earnest,"  she  affirmed.  "I  —  I 
did  not  expect  such  a  great  compliment  as  this." 

"  Compliment !  "  I  repeated  almost  confusedly. 

"Why,  yes.  You  —  you  have  so  many  oilier 
claims  upon  your  attention.  But,  as  I  said,  I  —  I 
am  very  glad." 

I  began  to  see  the  drift  of  things,  and  I  did  not 
at  all  like  their  drift.  Miss  Lowther's  manner  had 
struck  me  as  adulating.  It  wounded  me  far  more 
than  her  possible  frigid  patronage  might  have 
done. 

"  It  gives  me  pleasure,"  I  said  as  demurely  as  I 
could  manage,  "  to  find  that  you  welcome  my  ac- 
quaintanceship ;  but  I  must  warn  3^011  in  time  that 
it  will  prove  no  important  advantage  in  any  sense. 
You  have  only  met  a  very  usual  and  conventional 


232  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Conventional  —  certainly,  I  hope ! "  was  the 
quick  reply.  "  But  usual !  Oh,  how  can  you  em- 
ploy such  a  word,  even  about  yourself!  I  —  I 
have  heard  that  you  were  not  at  all  conceited  ;  but 
I  —  I  was  not  prepared  for  such  humility  as  this. 
Still,  I  suppose  that  is  only  one  of  your  charms  — 
only  one  of  the  many  reasons  why  you  are  such  a 
noteworthy  person.'" 

"  I  am  by  no  means  a  noteworthy  person,"  I 
replied,  and  perhaps  a  trifle  crisply ;  for  I  began 
to  suspect  satire  on  Miss  Lowther's  part  —  that 
she  was  making  me  wear  asses'  ears,  while  she  won 
me  to  believe  her  complimentary  broadsides  were 
sincerely  delivered.  "  Surely,"  I  went  on,  "  there 
is  no  real  fame  or  honor  in  having  a  neat  waltz- 
step." 

"  But  that  is  not  all,  you  know.  That  is  such 
a  slight  part  of  your  accomplishments  —  your  at- 
tractiveness. You  have  matters  quite  your  own 
way,  Mr.  Manhattan.  Oh,  don't  deny  thatvyou 
do !  You  came,  saw,  and  conquered  in  New  York. 
Why,  I  believe — yes,  upon  my  word  I  do — that 
if  you  were  actually  rude  to  some  of  our  girls, 
they  would  rather  accept  your  rudeness  than  the 
civility  of  other  gentlemen." 

I  no  longer  suspected  satire  now.  Miss  Low- 
ther's face  expressed  the  spirit  of  ardent  and  effu- 
sive candor.  At  the  same  time  this  whole  speech 
made  rne  bite  my  lips  with  annoyance.  An  ad- 
herent whom  I  did  not  know  —  a  person  with  a 
blank  face  and  a  sleepy,  milky  eye  —  still  remained 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  SARD.     233 

at  her  side.  The  german  was  about  to  begin  :  so 
I  soon  bowed  myself  away,  and  joined  my  partner. 
When  it  came  Miss  Lowther's  turn  to  dance,  she 
took  me  out.  After  the  figure  was  completed,  and 
while  we  danced  together,  she  murmured  in  my 
ear: 

"  Now  that  you  know  me,  Mr.  Manhattan,  I  hope 
you  will  not  entirely  forget  me." 

"  Forget  you ! "  I  responded  as  gallantly  as  I 
could.  "  That  is,  of  course,  quite  impossible." 

"  Oh,  how  charming  of  you !  But  I  need  not 
tell  you  that  I  have  heard  you  were  charming." 

A  few  days  later  I  received  an  invitation  to  dine 
at  Miss  Lowther's  residence.  I  accepted.  She 
lived  in  a  small,  pretty  house  not  far  from  Fifth 
Avenue.  The  drawing-rooms  struck  me  as  a  trifle 
over-decorated,  it  is  true ;  there  were  too  many 
screens,  rugs,  and  sofa-cushions ;  there  was  too  evi- 
dent an  effort  to  be  telling  and  chic.  But  it  was 
all  quite  charming,  nevertheless.  I  had  a  little 
chat  with  Miss  Lowther  before  dinner ;  the  guests 
had  been  invited  for  seven,  and  nearly  all  came,  as 
usual,  at  half-past.  The  young  lady's  manner  al- 
most shocked  me ;  it  went  beyond  the  bounds  of 
hospitable  concern ;  it  was,  in  a  way,  literally  ser- 
vile. And  yet  I  somehow  could  not  help  liking 
her.  I  found  myself  mentally  insisting  that  she 
was  a  nice  girl.  But,  if  so,  she  was  a  nice  girl  hid 
behind  a  mist  of  her  own  making.  I  pictured  her 
to  myself  without  this  overplus  of  affability;  I 
thought  how  pleasant  she  might  be  if  she  had 


234  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

merely  been  glad  to  see  me,  and  not  so  preposter- 
ously glad.  Her  welcome,  her  geniality,  defeated 
themselves  by  their  own  vehemence. 

And  it  was  just  the  same  with  regard  to  her 
other  guests.  Whomever  Miss  Lowther  greeted, 
she  greeted  too  warmly  and  cordially.  Before  her 
little  dinner  had  ended  that  evening,  I  had  solved 
the  riddle  of  her  non-success.  She  tried  too  hard 
to  succeed. 

Yes,  the  whole  secret  lay  there.  She  tried  too 
hard.  If  her  endeavors  had  been  only  a  few 
shades  less  energetic,  she  would  have  easily  reached 
a  far  higher  plane  of  attainment.  My  friend,  Mrs. 
Stonington,  —  tried  woman  of  the  world,  —  gave 
one  of  her  soft,  amused  laughs,  about  three  even- 
ings later,  when  I  communicated  to  her  this  dis- 
covery. 

She  is  one  of  the  most  serenely  elegant  women 
whom  I  know,  is  Mrs.  Stonington.  She  treats  life 
as  if  it  were  an  easy,  rolling  landau,  in  which  she 
had  nothing  to  do  except  lean  comfortably  back- 
ward and  be  driven  along.  No  danger  of  her  being 
genee  by  too  profuse  a  politeness  toward  either 
foes  or  friends.  She  looked  at  me  with  her  large, 
soft,  tawny-brown  eyes  for  a  moment  after  I  had 
spoken,  and  then  said  in  her  smooth,  lazy  voice  : 

"  You  are  very  extraordinary." 

"  How  extraordinary  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  in  treating  men  and  women  just  as  if  they 
were  problems  in  algebra."  Here  she  tapped  one 
dainty  foot  impatiently  on  the  floor.  We  were 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD.      235 

seated  together  in  that  beautiful  little  Japanese 
room  of  hers  ;  I  had  dined  with  her  a  deux  ;  I  was 
to  take  her  to  the  opera  in  a  little  while ;  we  were 
waiting  for  her  carriage  to  come.  She  had  on  a 
cloak  of  some  white  woolly  stuff  threaded  with 
gold;  her  arch,  indolent  face  lifted  itself  on  a 
slender  stem  of  neck  from  a  snowy  circlet  of  swan's- 
down  ;  she  held  a  bunch  of  big  pink  roses  in  one 
gloved  hand;  she  looked  enchantingly  patrician, 
and  as  mondaine  as  possible,  besides ;  you  would 
never  have  suspected  her  of  not  getting  the  best 
from  society ;  you  could  tell  by  a  glance  that  she 
was  the  woman  to  take  for  granted,  and  receive 
rather  as  a  matter  of  course,  not  a  little  solid  and 
sincere  homage ;  the  feverish  struggles  of  a  Miss 
Lowther  were  unknown  to  such  as  she. 

"  But  one  would  not  so  much  mind  this  fury  of 
observation  and  analysis,"  my  hostess  went  on 
with  a  somewhat  impudent  drawl,  "if  one  were 
not  so  certain  that  you  are  'collecting  material.' 
It  is  so  tiresome  to  meet  a  person  who  is  '  collect- 
ing material ! ' —  I  mean  for  a  novel,  of  course." 

"  I  have  not  the  remotest  idea  of  perpetrating  a 
novel,"  I  said.  "  There  are  too  many  bad  ones 
already." 

Mrs.  Stonington  raised  her  brows  in  surprise. 
"  What  refreshing  modesty ! "  she  exclaimed. 
"But  if  such  is  the  fact,  why  on  earth  do  you 
bore  yourself  trying  to  find  a  reason  for  the  un- 
popularity of  that  Lowther  girl?" 

"  Because  I  was  impressed  by  her  being  a  girl 


236  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

who  ought  to  succeed.  But  I  am  convinced  that 
I  have  hit  upon  the  true  reason  why  she  does  not. 
She  betrays  her  anxiety;  she  tries  too  hard.  Yes, 
I  am  sure  it  is  that." 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  now  said  Mrs.  Stoning- 
ton,  whom  I  expected  to  be  on  the  verge  of  con- 
tradicting me.  "  When  we  show  that  we  want  a 
thing  very  greatly,  the  world  lias  a  trick  of  coolly 
refusing  it  us.  Miss  Lowther  has  more  brains 
than  I  have  —  and  I  suppose  you  know  that  I 
don't  think  myself  by  any  means  a  fool.  I  have 
watched  her  for  some  time  —  half  unconsciously, 
perhaps.  I  could  have  explained  her  to  you  long 
ago.  She  was  born  outside  of  the  fashionable  sets. 
She  strove  to  get  in  among  them,  and  distinctly 
did  not  fail.  But  her  success,  so  to  speak,  went  to 
her  head.  Of  course,  she  is  a  nice  girl ;  you  are 
perfectly  right  in  thinking  her  so  ;  if  I  were  at 
some  quiet  country  hotel  in  the  summer,  I  should 
prefer  her  company  to  that  of  any  reigning  belle 
whom  I  know.  But  in  society  I  can't  endure  her. 
She  is  ridiculous  there  —  almost  a  caricature,  in 
fact.  She  does  nothing  with  grace  or  tact;  and 
grace  and  tact  are  two  things  that  society  — 
always  thinking  so  much  more  of  manner  than 
matter  —  holds  indispensable.  A  less  frivolous 
career  would  become  her  far  better.  There  are  a 
hundred  worthier  modes  of  life  in  which  she  might 
play  her  part  to  far  greater  advantage.  But,  as  it 
is,  she  is  bitten  by  the  fashionable  craze,  and  her 
recovery  —  her  sensible  recognition  of  her  own 


THE  YOUNG  LADY  WHO  TRIES  TOO  HARD.      237 

grievous  mistake  —  is  uncertain,  if  not  absolutely 
impossible." 

"  Poor  girl !  "  I  said,  half  to  my  own  thoughts. 
"  Poor,  foolish,  unreasoning  girl !  " 

Mrs.  Stonington  rose  at  this  point,  drawing  her 
opera-cloak  closer  about  her  handsome  figure,  with 
one  of  her  light,  melodious,  indifferent  laughs. 
The  butler  had  just  appeared  in  the  doorway,  an- 
nouncing  her  carriage. 

"Bah!  there  are  plenty  of  really  miserable 
people  in  the  world,"  she  said,  "who  truly  merit 
your  compassion.  Don't  fling  it  away  broadcast. 
And  come  —  let  us  go  to  the  opera  and  hear  that 
divine  Patti.  She  tries  and  succeeds.  She  is  not 
like  your  Miss  Louisa  Lowther,  who  tries  too  hard 
—  and  fails." 


238  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XIX. 

A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE. 

"  I  WISH  to  present  you  to  my  mother,"  said 
Miss  Lilian  Holdridge  one  evening  at  a  party, 
while  I  was  having  a  little  chat  with  her  about 
something,  —  the  weather,  last  night's  ball  some- 
where, the  voice  of  the  newly  imported  prinia- 
donna,  —  I  forget  wholly,  in  short,  the  subject  of 
our  converse. 

"Certainly,"  I  said.  "It  will  give  me  great 
pleasure." 

This  was  one  of  those  conventional  white  lies 
which  we  are  forever  called  upon  to  utter,  if  we 
would  preserve  anything  like  peace  in  our  social 
dealings,  and  retain  a  shred  of  reputation  for  even 
decent  amiability.  The  truth  was  that  I  did  not 
at  all  want  to  meet  Mrs.  Holdridge.  I  had  heard 
a  great  deal  about  this  lady,  and  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  that  during  the  coming  season,  while  she 
appeared  in  public  as  the  chaperon  of  her  debutante 
daughter,  I  would  use  all  polite  means  of  avoiding 
her.  This  daughter  had  pleased  me  at  first  sight ; 
and  the  lily  in  her  soft  name  struck  me  as  appro- 
priate enough  to  have  been  prompted  when  she 
was  christened  by  some  fairy  sure  of  her  sweetness 


A  PILLAR  OF   VIRTUE.  239 

\ 

yet  in  bud.  She  was  a  little  taller  than  the  com- 
mon maidenly  stature,  but  so  slightly  above  it  that 
this  trait  gave  the  pale,  chiselled  purity  of  her  face 
a  new  and  gentle  dignity.  Her  meekness  and  her 
chastity  appealed  to  you  the  instant  your  gaze 
dwelt  on  her ;  she  made  one  think  of  "  Elaine  the 
fair,  Elaine  the  lovable ; "  her  hair  would  have 
been  flaxen  but  for  certain  glistening  threads  in 
its  dense,  banded  folds.  She  had  all  the  innocence 
of  a  Greuze,  and  all  the  saintliness  of  a  Fra  Angel- 
ico.  She  usually  dressed  in  white,  and  wore  no 
jewels ;  her  mother  did  not  approve  of  jewels  in  an 
unmarried  woman.  Her  pure  gowns  were  never  de- 
colletes  ;  her  mother  did  not  approve  of  their  being 
worn  thus  by  women  of  any  sort,  married  or  un- 
married. She  was  not  clever ;  but  you  did  not  ex- 
pect cleverness  to  issue  from  her  delicate  tea-rose 
of  a  mouth ;  you  would  as  soon  have  expected  a 
pearl  to  flash  like  a  diamond.  I  have  never  seen 
one  of  her  sex  so  delightfully  free  from  the  least 
trace  of  vanity  —  and  it  has  at  no  time  been  my 
wont  to  set  down  this  fault  as  one  distinctively 
feminine.  She  was  not  a  belle  in  society ;  she  ap- 
peared to  stand  apart  from  the  belles,  rather 
through  a  winsome  reluctance  to  join  their  artifi- 
cial throng  than  from  any  incapacity  to  shine  and 
attract  there.  One  look  at  her  convinced  you  that 
she  was  good  and  honest,  and  I  fear  "that  not  a  few 
of  her  simpering  and  wily  sisters  only  looked  at 
her  with  twinges  of  compunction  on  this  account. 
She  would  not  use  the  manifold  adroit  devices 


240  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

which  to  so  many  girls  of  her  place  and  caste 
are  shield  and  panoply.  She  danced  like  the 
sylph  she  was,  and  always  had  a  partner  for  the 
german,  and  a  bouquet  besides.  But  the  young 
men  with  white  waistcoats,  and  assured  incomes, 
and  superfine  reputations  for  conferring  special 
honor  by  their  civilities,  appeared,  as  a  rule,  a  little 
afraid  of  her.  Besides,  the  Holdridges  were  not 
by  any  means  people  of  note. 

"  Her  mother  gave  her  all  the  position  she  has," 
said  Scorch,  a  cynical  old  snob  of  a  club-man,  to 
me  one  evening  at  the  Metropolitan.  "  It 's  very 
funny  how  that  Holdridge  woman  got  about.  I 
remember  perfectly  when  it  first  happened.  It 
was  all  on  account  of  her  diplomatic  piety." 

"  What  are  you  saying  ?  "  I  exclaimed  with  a 
burst  of  laughter  in  spite  of  myself. 

"  Fact,  I  assure  you,  Manhattan,"  said  my  bitter 

companion.  "  She  secured  a  pew  in  Dr.  Z 's 

fashionable  church  on  the  avenue.  She  was 
enormously  devote;  in  this  way  she  aroused  in- 
terest among  certain  patrician  pew-holders.  Her 
next  move  was  to  establish  a  Bible-class  for  little 
girls.  She  was  very  particular  what  little  girls 
reaped  the  benefit  of  her  scriptural  teachings.  At 
first  the  thing  was  rather  a  fiasco.  The  swells 
were  puzzled;  they  did  n't  know  just  what  to 
make  of  it.  They  found  themselves  attacked  from 
a  totally  new  quarter.  People  had  '  got  in '  by 
almost  every  conceivable  method  except  this.  If 
it  was  a  ruse  de  guerre^  it  was  horrible ;  and,  if  it 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  241 

was  n't,  then  the  suspicion  of  its  being  so  was 
shamefully  unjust.  After  a  little  demur,  they  sur- 
rendered. Mrs.  Holdridge  and  piety  and  the  Bible- 
classes  won  the  day.  This  was  about  ten  years 
ago.  Lilian  was  only  eight  or  nine  then ;  but  be- 
fore she  was  three  years  older  she  had  a  lot  of 
'  dear  little  intimate  friends,'  as  her  mamma  used 
to  call  them.  They  were  all  selected  with  an  im- 
mense prudence.  No  English  duchess,  presiding 
over  the  list  of  Almack's,  was  ever  more  careful 
than  Mrs.  Holdridge  with  the  members-elect  of 
her  holy  re-unions."  Here  my  friend  repressed  a 
yawn.  "  Well,  she  did  it,"  he  continued,  "  and 
that 's  the  whole  story.  Her  scholars  have  all 
grown  up,  and  the  saintly  Lilian  has  grown  up 
with  them,  and  is  lancee.  Nothing  is  given  that 
they  don't  get  cards  for,  mamma  and  daughter. 
There  is  n't  any  papa,  you  know." 

"  Mrs.  Holdridge  is  a  widow  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  she  has  been  one  since  the  Flood.  No- 
body ever  knew  her  spouse.  It  is  darkly  mur- 
mured that  he  once  kept  a  gentlemen's  furnishing- 
store  in  Fulton  Street.  But  this  may  be  only  the 
slanderous  coinage  of  some  infidel  brain.  Perhaps 
it  was  started  by  the  aggrieved  parent  of  some 
little  girl  who  could  n't  get  into  the  aristocratic 
Bible-class." 

I  laughed  once  more,  against  my  will,  as  the  lazy 
insolence  of  Scorch  has  so  often  made  me.  "Mam- 
ma's occupation  must  be  gone  at  present,"  I 


242  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Her  real  occupation  's  begun,"  replied  Scorch. 
"  Now  she  's  going  to  marry  off  her  girl.  But  as 
she  has  n't  got  any  money  to  speak  of,  and  never 
had  any  real  position  to  speak  of,  she  still  keeps 
up  her  monstrous  virtue  to  give  herself  an  indi- 
viduality among  the  other  dowagers.  She  winked 
an  eyelid  to  me  to-day  in  the  park,  and  I  lifted 
my  whip-hand  just  three  inches.  That 's  the  way 
Piety  and  Vice  bow  to  each  other.  We  do  it  four 
or  five  times  a  week.  She  disapproves  of  me,  and 
I  abominate  her.  She  thinks  I  'm  a  reprobate,  be- 
cause I  sit  up  all  night  here  in  the  card-room  now 
and  then  ;  and  I  think  her  a  horrid  old  arch-hypo- 
crite, and  one  of  the  most  venomous  gossips  in 
town  besides.  That 's  the  way  we  stand."  Here 
Scorch  drew  out  his  watch,  and  rose.  "  Halloo  !  " 
he  added,  "  it 's  euchre-time.  I  hope  talking  to 
you  '11  bring  me  luck  to-night,  Mark ;  for,  by  Jove ! 
they  cleaned  me  out  of  three  hundred  the  last  time 
I  played." 

Scorch's  comments  were  by  no  means  my  rea- 
son for  wishing  not  to  know  Lilian  Holdridge's 
mother.  My  card-loving  friend  never  has  a  good 
word  for  living  mortal,  and  not  seldom  wags  his 
cruel  tongue  about  dead  ones  as  well.  Yet  it  was 
impossible  to  move  in  the  same  general  set  with 
Mrs.  Holdridge  and  not  discover  that  she  was 
a  person  who  not  only  assumed  a  vast  personal 
morality,  but  sat  in  perpetual  judgment  upon  the 
deeds  and  misdeeds  of  her  contemporaries. 

Still,  it  was  written  that  I  should  know  her; 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  243 

and  I  soon  discovered  that  she  herself,  as  one 
might  say,  had  so  written  it.  She  always  made  it 
a  rule  to  know,  if  possible,  the  gentlemen  whom 
her  daughter  met  in  society.  I  confess,  there 
was  a  tang  of  impudence  in  this  pronunciamento 
which  stirred  my  spleen. 

"  You  remind  me  of  a  certain  gentleman  whom 
both  of  us  know,  Mrs.  Holdridge,"  I  said  after 
my  presentation,  "  and  who  never  permits  either  of 
his  two  extremely  plain  daughters  to  walk  in  the 
street  unattended  by  a  maid." 

She  raised  her  glossy  black  eyebrows,  indicating 
puzzlement.  "  I  do  not  understand  you,"  she  said. 

Her  voice  had  a  cold  ring  at  all  times,  and 
was  a  trifle  higher  than  the  customary  tone  in 
which  even  Americam  ladies  talk.  She  was  in 
every  way  the  opposite  of  her  lovely,  blond,  mild- 
mannered  daughter ;  and  yet  a  vague  resemblance, 
as  so  often  happens  in  these  cases,  betrayed  the 
relationship.  She  had  a  matronly  figure,  and 
strong,  severe,  almost  commanding  features.  It 
was  a  perfectly  uncompromising  countenance ;  its 
arched  nose,  keen,  large  black  eyes,  thin,  flexible 
lips,  and  somewhat  acute  chin,  expressed  determi- 
nation, energy,  austerity.  Whether  or  no  from 
some  peculiarly  erect  mode  of  holding  herself,  she 
seemed  at  nearly  all  times  to  be  more  clearly 
defined  against  her  background  than  most  other 
women.  Her  costume  was  rich  but  plain ;  it 
would  be  hard  to  tell  just  how  she  managed  to 
combine  so  much  richness  with  so  much  plainness. 


244  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

I  had  already,  after  this  brief  meeting,  begun  to 
account  for  that  whispered  nickname,  "  the  pillar 
of  virtue,"  by  which  not  a  few  of  the  merry-mak- 
ing throng  had  recently  designated  her. 

"My  parallel  was  rather  an  obscure  one,"  I  now 
said.  "  Let  me  explain  it." 

"  Be  good  enough  to  do  so,"  said  Mrs.  Holdridge. 
In  such  a  voice  she  might  have  asked  some  pupil 
of  her  previous  Bible-class,  "How  many  sons  had 
Noah  ?  "  or,  "  State  what  was  the  calamity  which 
befell  Jonah." 

"  The  explanation  is  simple,"  I  returned.  "  Pru- 
dence prompts  Mr.  D to  protect  his  daughters 

in  a  case  where  prudence  seems  especially  need- 
less, since  instances  are  rare  here  of  a  lady  being 
insulted,  or  even  annoyed,  in  our  public  streets. 
Equally,  —  if  you  will  pardon  my  saying  so,  —  I 
should  think  there  was  an  overplus  of  prudence  in 
taking  such  extreme  care  as  to  what  gentlemen 
your  charming  daughter  may  meet  at  entertain- 
ments like  the  present,  where  doubt  of  any  gentle- 
man's fitness  for  her  acquaintanceship  is  to  some- 
what undervalue  the  good  faith  of  your  host." 

I  spoke  very  quietly,  and  with  as  courteous  an 
accent  as  I  could  employ;  but  I  saw  that  my 
words  dealt  a  sting,  and  I  did  not  at  all  regret  this 
result. 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you  that  I  might  have 
other  than  prudential  reasons  for  wishing  to  know 
Lilian's  male  friends  ? "  she  inquired  with  rather 
a  wintry  smile. 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  245 

"  That  is  the  view  I  took  of  your  attitude,"  I 
said.  "  But,  of  course,  it  is  useless  for  me  to  add 
that  Miss  Holdridge's  admirers  must  always  con- 
gratulate themselves  upon  the  rule  you  have  set, 
whatever  its  origin." 

"  I  have  heard  that  you  can  turn  a  compliment 
neatly,  Mr.  Manhattan,"  she  answered.  She 
laughed  as  she  spoke,  but  there  was  still  frost  in 
her  voice  and  her  look.  "  To  be  frank  with  you,  I 
do  not  wish  that  Lilian  should  meet  every  gentle- 
man now  in  society.  Or,  rather,  if  she  meets  cer- 
tain of  them,  I  prefer  that  there  should  be  no 
intimacy.  My  ground  —  and  I  take  pride  in  ad- 
mitting it  — is  entirely  a  moral  ground." 

"  Ah  ?  "  I  said,  biting  my  mustache. 

"  Yes  —  truly,  yes.  The  habits,  tendencies,  oc- 
cupations of  some  young  men  of  the  day  distress 
and  shock  me.  I  have  always  been  very  particu- 
lar with  Lilian.  I  do  not  wish  to  set  myself  up  as 
a  preacher  of  decorum  —  far  be  it  from  me,  Mr. 
Manhattan,  to  assume  any  such  pharisaical  part. 
But  if  society  is  not  built  upon  a  sound,  religious, 
reputable  basis,  it  surely  behooves  every  mother 
to  use  great  care  in  watching  the  interests  and 
welfare  of  her  child.  Now,  I  know  —  I  positively 
know  —  that  lines  of  conduct  are  pursued  by  girls 
of  the  present  time  which  it  would  break  my 
heart  if  I  thought  my  dear  child  could  ever  fail  to 
shrink  from." 

"  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  find  myself  on  the 
list  of  your  aversions,"  I  now  said. 


246  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  Oh,  but  you  are  not !  pray,  do  not  for  an  in- 
stant think  so." 

"But  I  am  very  much  afraid  that  I  am  not 
built  upon  a  sound,  religious,  and  reputable  basis." 

The  "  pillar  of  virtue  "  shook  her  glossy  black 
head  quite  seriously.  "  Ah,  do  not  jest  upon  such 
a  subject !  "  she  admonished,  with  what  struck  me 
as  the  most  irritating  and  ill-timed  patronage.  "  I 
"have  heard  —  if  you  will  excuse  my  saying  it  on 
so  short  an  acquaintance  —  that  you  sometimes 
show  sympathy  with  those  dreadful  atheistical 
writers,  —  I  scarcely  know  their  names,  even,  — 
the  Free-thinkers,  I  mean,  who  wish  to  do  away 
with  all  religion,  and  tell  us  that  we  were  origi- 
nally monkeys,  and  that,  instead  of  being  made  by 
our  Lord  in  seven  days,  the  world  has  been  grad- 
ually developing  for  millions  and  millions  of  years, 
and  that  miracles  like  the  turning  of  water  into 
wine  were  impossible  and  never  took  place,  and  — 
Oh,  my  dear  Dr.  Fossilcreed !  what  a  surprise  to 
meet  you  here  to-night !  I  thought  you  had  quite 
given  up  going  into  the  gay  world." 

While  these  latter  words  of  effusive  welcome 
were  being  addressed  to  the  stately  white-neck- 
clothed  divine,  Dr.  Fossilcreed,  I  took  the  chances 
of  dexterous  retreat.  All  Scorch's  past  acerbity 
of  comment  regarding  "the  pillar  of  virtue" 
seemed  to  me,  just  then,  literal  truth.  At  the 
same  time  I  could  not,  without  injustice,  rob  Mrs. 
Holdridge  of  sincerity.  This  did  not  prevent  her 
from  being  very  disagreeable  :  so  many  people  are 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  247 

that  with  entire  sincerity.  I  could  not  denounce 
her,  however  much  I  disliked  her,  as  a  hypocrite. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  her  to  be  one  in  order  to 
be  almost  repulsive  in  my  sight.  We  have  all 
known  people  who  possess  the  courage  of  their 
opinions.  She  appeared  to  possess  not  only  the 
courage,  but  the  arrogance  and  presumption,  of 
hers.  The  truth  is,  I  fear,  she  had  touched  me  in 
rather  a  sore  spot  when  she  had  begun  to  assail 
me  with  the  usual  cudgel-flourish  of  bigoted  igno- 
rance. 

As  the  season  grew  older,  this  lady  became  more 
and  more  unpopular.  It  began  to  be  discovered 
that  her  "moral"  views  on  most  points  took  the 
form  of  most  assiduous  and  unremitting  scandals. 
There  were  several  powerful  dames  in  the  world 
of  fashion  whom  her  virtue  had  appalled  into  a 
loyal  friendship,  and  these  she  induced  to  adopt 
measures  of  strictness  and  punctilio  which  I  am 
sure  they  would  not  have  dreamed  of  but  for  her 
puritanic  counsellings.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
she  maintained  a  kind  of  position  by  this  course. 
She  managed  to  make  herself  hated,  but  she  also 
managed  to  make  herself  feared.  I  believe  it  is 
Balzac  who  somewhere  says,  "  Un  pouvoir  impune- 
ment  brave  toucJie  a  sa  ruine;"  and  Mrs.  Holdridge, 
who  had  now  undoubtedly  become  a  power,  had 
never  thus  far  been  braved  with  impunity.  She 
was  instrumental  in  causing  more  than  one  young 
man  to  be  actually  dropped  from  the  ordinary  vis- 
iting-list. It  is  said  that  she  employed  a  little 


248  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

corps  of  detectives  who  reported  to  her  the  pecca- 
dilloes of  their  male  friends ;  and  a  witty  young 
merry-maker  at  length  changed  the  mode  of  re- 
ferring to  her  as  the  "pillar  of  virtue  "  by  one  night 
mentioning  her  as  "  the  police  headquarters." 

To  her  own  sex  she  was  equally  merciless.  And 
yet  it  soon  was  apparent  to  me  that  her  covert  at- 
tacks were  never  made  against  any  one,  man  or 
woman,  whose  place  in  life  was  high  and  assured. 
By  this  time  I  had  nourished  decided  doubts  of 
her  sincerity.  Besides,  I  had  grown  to  be  quite 
intimate  with  her  lovable  and  almost  infantile 
daughter.  Poor  Lilian  was  unquestionably  perse- 
cuted, and  stood  in  immense  awe  of  her  mother. 
Toward  the  latter  part  of  January  she  had  got  to 
know  my  friend,  Tom  Abernethy,  very  well  indeed, 
and  I  more  than  half  suspected  that  the  two 
young  people  were  genuinely  in  love  with  one 
another. 

Tom  was  in  every  way  a  desirable  match  for 
such  a  girl  as  Lilian  Holdridge.  He  was  doing 
fairly  well  in  his  business  as  a  cotton-broker ;  he 
came  of  an  excellent  family ;  he  was  good-looking, 
cultivated,  and  of  a  rarely  genial  disposition ;  there 
was,  in  short,  nothing  matrimonially  against  him, 
and  (although  he  was  not  what  calculating  ambi- 
tion would  call  a  great  parti)  there  stood  a  good 
deal  definitely  in  his  favor. 

But  Mrs.  Holdridge,  just  when  his  attentions  be- 
came marked  and  pointed,  chose  to  lay  upon  them 
her  parental  veto.  I  saw  that  Tom  was  miserable; 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  249 

and  the  pain  which  it  now  cost  Lilian  to  front  the 
gayeties  of  her  first  season  was  not  hidden  from 
me,  though  she  tried  hard  to  let  no  one  dis- 
cern it. 

"Tom,"  I  said  to  my  old  classmate  at  Harvard 
one  evening,  while  we  sat  in  a  corner  of  the  club 
together,  "you  're  gloomy  as  a  sexton,  and  of  course 
I  know  why."  There  is  a  certain,  abruptness,  a 
sudden  cleaving  of  the  ceremonious  ice,  as  it  were, 
which,  between  such  friends  as  Tom  and  I,  serves 
better  than  the  most  careful  and  guarded  approach. 
Tom  turned  and  looked  a  hand-clasp  at  me  with 
his  mellow  gray  eyes.  "You  like  the  girl,"  I  went 
on,  with  the  large  recklessness,  now,  of  one  who 
has  made  a  successful  coup  de phrase,  "and  I'm 
nearly  sure  she  likes  you." 

"She  does,  Mark,"  whispered  Tom  with  an 
excited  flutter  in  his  throat  that  I  had  never  ob- 
served there  before. 

"  Ah !  I  suppose  you  have  it  from  the  best  of 
all  authorities,"  I  said. 

«Well,  — yes." 

"And  the  old  lady  refuses  her  consent?" 

"Point-blank." 

"Have  you  any  idea  why?  Have  any  of  her 
myrmidons  seen  you  drinking  before  a  bar,  or  play- 
ing billiards  here  after  twelve  ?  " 

I  had  never  known  Tom's  face  so  cloudy  (and  I 
have  witnessed  him  during  the  horrors  of  exami- 
nation day  at  college  more  than  once)  as  when 
he  made  an  inclination  of  the  head  toward  a  rather 
distant  doorway,  and  answered : 


250  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"Here  comes  Mrs.  Holdridge's  reason.  What 
do  you  think  of  it?" 

I  understood  in  a  flash.  The  Honorable  Rodney 
Blantyre  had  just  entered  the  room  where  we  sat. 
He  had  been  here  about  a  month.  He  was  the  third 
or  fourth  son  of  the  Earl  of  Dundalk,  and  he  was 
understood  to  be  the  possessor  of  a  large  income, 
derived  from  some  maternal  branch  of  his  ancient 
Irish  family.  He  had  come  here  to  shoot  buffalo  in 
the  Far  West ;  but  he  had  stopped  in  New  York, 
never  getting  any  farther.  He  was  declared  to 
have  been  greatly  captivated  by  the  young  ladies 
of  New  York,  and  I  have  no  doubt  (with  that 
passion  for  marrying  into  noble  foreign  families 
which  casts  so  dismal  a  slur  upon  our  republi- 
can name)  the  young  ladies  of  New  York  had 
treated  him  much  more  cordially  than  those  of 
England.  He  did  not  look  as  if  he  deserved  to  be 
treated  well  by  any  kind  of  young  lady.  He  had 
a  beardless,  mindless,  inane  face,  a  very  receding 
forehead,  and  a  limp,  shambling  figure.  I  had  once 
sat  next  him  at  a  dinner-party,  and  recalled  what 
he  had  said  to  me  as  the  most  utter  stupidity.  I 
have  met  so  many  manly,  charming,  and  brilliant 
Irishmen  in  my  life,  that  I  now  feel  almost  like 
apologizing  to  them  for  this  record  of  Rodney 
Blantyre's  nationality. 

Yes,  the  fiat  of  Mrs.  Holdridge  was  quite  explain- 
able now.  Lord  Dundalk's  son  had  of  late  been 
paying  rather  conspicuous  court  to  Miss  Lilian. 
Affairs,  as  I  soon  learned  from  Tom,  were  even 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  251 

more  serious.  He  had  asked  the  girl  in  marriage 
of  her  mother,  after  true  foreign  fashion. 

But  for  once  Lilian  had  made  a  firm  stand.  Her 
last  interview  with  Tom  had  been  a  heart-breaking 
one.  It  was  the  old  story,  that  is  yet  forever  new. 
I  thought  it  all  over  after  Tom  had  made  me  his 
full  confidence  that  night.  I  wondered  if  I  could 
do  anything.  Perseus  slew  the  Gorgon,  but  could 
I  overthrow  "  the  pillar  of  virtue  "  ?  I  really  loved 
Tom  Abernethy,  and  my  feelings  toward  Lilian 
were  as  tenderly  respectful  a.s  any  that  I  had  ever 
borne  for  living  woman. 

"  Go  and  have  a  talk  with  Mrs.  Holdridge,"  I 
counselled  Tom.  "  Show  her  that  the  course  of 
conduct  which  she  is  now  pursuing  makes  all  her 
past  piety  and  morality  a  sham  and  a  falsehood. 
But  show  this  with  self-control,  always  remember- 
ing that,  whatever  she  may  he,  you  are  a  gentleman, 
born  and  bred." 

Tom  took  my  advice.  .  .  .  "It's  no  use,"  he  said 
to  me  three  or  four  days  later.  "  I  kept  my  temper, 
but  she  was  hard  as  a  rock.  She  regards  her  con- 
duct from  a  purely  moral  stand-point.  She  says  it 
is  her  duty,  as  a  loving  mother,  to  make  Lilian's 
future  as  bright  as  possible.  She  presumed  to  tell 
me  that  she  considered  that  booby  a  young  man  of 
stainless  character  and  much  intellectual  promise." 

I  took  Tom's  arm,  and  we  walked  together  a 
good  many  times  up  and  down  the  large  hall  of  the 
Metropolitan  Club.  After  we  had  finished  talking, 
Torn  bad  made  up  his  mind. 


252  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

That  night  the  Chambeiiaynes  gave  a  great  ball 
in  their  fine  new  house  near  Central  Park.  It  was 
a  mansion  full  of  lovely  alcoves,  and  alluring, 
retired  little  nooks.  I  managed  to  get  Lilian  and 
Tom  into  one  of  these,  and  kept  guard  upon  them. 
I  made  sure  that  they  had  a  good  hour  together. 
I  saw  the  Honorable  Rodney  Blantyre  move  about 
the  drawing-rooms  a  good  many  times  with  Mrs. 
Holdridge,  august  and  imposing,  on  his  lank  arm. 
It  was  a  great  crush,  and  they  were  looking  for 
their  lost  Lilian.  Once  Mrs.  Holdridge  fixed  her 
black  eyes  upon  me.  I  bowed  to  her  with  a  some- 
what skilful  blending  of  suavity  and  innocence. 
When  the  occasion  was  propitious,  I  rustled  a  blue 
satin  curtain,  and  Tom  and  Lilian  glided  safely 
forth,  the  latter  with  a  pink  spot  in  each  cheek,  and 
eyes  full  of  a  dewy  sparkle. 

That  was  Wednesday  night.  On  Friday  morning 
Lilian  left  her  home,  and  joined  Tom  and  myself 
at  young  Mrs.  Paul  Madison's  pretty  basement 
house  in  Twenty-Third  Street.  We  made  a  very 
quiet  wedding-party,  and  a  very  expeditious  one. 
The  whole  thing  was  over  in  less  than  an  hour ; 
we  had  driven  to  church,  accomplished  our  dark, 
clandestine  deed,  and  returned  again  by  about  one 
o'clock  that  morning. 

And  then,  according  to  a  pre-arranged  plan,  I 
started  for  Mrs.  Holdridge's  house.  It  had  been 
decided  that  I  should  break  the  awful  tidings.  I 
was  perfectly  acquiescent.  I  don't  think  I  ever 
performed  any  task  with  a  more  complete  willing- 
ness. 


A  PILLAR  OF  VIRTUE.  253 

Mrs.  Holdridge  was  at  home,  and  received  me 
smilingly.  "I  come  from  your  daughter,"  I  said; 
and  then,  without  pausing  more  than  an  instant,  I 
told  of  Lilian's  marriage  to  Tom. 

She  grew  white  as  death  while  she  heard  me.  I 
thought  at  first  that  she  was  going  to  swoon ; 
but  here  I  was  disagreeably  in  error.  The  pallor 
meant  merely  rage.  Her  black  eyes  shot  out  lam- 
bent fire.  She  rose  and  regarded  me  for  a  minute 
or  two  in  silence.  And  then  she  poured  forth  upon 
me  a  stream  of  wrathful  invective,  so  monstrously 
vulgar  and  unladylike  that  it  nearly  took  my 
breatli  away  with  sheer  amazement. 

I  will  not  write  a  word  that  she  said.  There 
are  women  who  dwell  amid  the  worst  surround- 
ings of  uneducated  poverty  who  would  have  been 
ashamed  to  show  such  rabid  anger  as  this  pious 
lady  showed  then,  or  to  speak  some  of  the  sen- 
tences that  she  then  spoke. 

"  Scorch  was  right,"  I  thought  as  I  watched  her 
and  listened  to  her. 

When  she  sank  back  into  her  seat,  quivering 
and  colorless,  I  felt  it  my  turn  to  rise. 

"You  wanted  to  make  your  lovely  daughter 
marry  a  titled  fool,"  I  said,  "  in  place  of  the  good, 
worthy  fellow  whom  she  has  married.  If  I  aided 
her  and  him,  I  am  not  at  all  ashamed  of  it.  While 
all  that  you  have  just  uttered  is  still  fresh  in  my 
memory,  I  shall  write  it  down,  and  take  pains  to 
acquaint  with  the  contents  of  my  manuscript  some 
of  the  ladies  whose  children  you  once  permitted  to 


254  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

enter  your  very  select  Bible-class.  Good-after- 
noon, madam." 

But  I  never  did  anything  of  the  sort,  and  never 
intended  to  do  it.  Mrs.  Holdridge  stood  in  mortal 
terror  of  me  for  several  weeks,  as  I  could  well  see 
whenever  we  met ;  and  finally,  after  having  become 
reconciled  with  her  happy  daughter,  she  wrote  me 
one  day  a  letter  full  of  contrite  and  even  suppli- 
catory fervor.  I  answered  the  letter  briefly  and 
coldly,  but  with  a  distinct  assurance  that  my 
threat  would  never  be  kept. 

She  still  has  her  believers,  her  supporters,  her 
eulogists.  One  often  sees  her  name  on  charitable 
committees — but  always  where  the  other  names 
are  those  of  ladies  whom  "  everybody  visits." 

Scorch  was  balefully  gleesome  over  the  elope- 
ment. "  Serves  her  right,"  he  chuckled  to  me  at 
the  club.  "She  wanted  to  get  over  to  London, 
you  know,  and  swell  it  as  a  connection  of  Lord 
Dundalk." 

"  But  all  is  not  lost,"  I  said.  "  She  can  still 
remain  here  and  be  a  pillar  of  virtue." 

"Yes,  a  brass  one,"  said  old  Scorch  in  his 
throat. 


TEE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  BIS  WAT.     255 


XX. 

THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY. 

"  NEW  YORK  society  is  so  monotonous ! "  said 
Miss  Ella  Carlisle  to  me  one  evening.  "  I  do  so 
long  to  meet  somebody  who  is  fresh  and  original ! " 

Ella  Carlisle  is  just  the  girl  who  might  express 
such  a  sentiment.  The  Carlisles  are  Pennsylvania 
people,  who  have  got  into  New  York  society 
through  their  reputed  millions  in  coal,  and  who 
have  spent  at  least  five  good  years  abroad.  Miss 
Ella  is  the  veriest  type  of  that  young  American 
girl  who  has  been  everywhere  throughout  Europe, 
and  who  has  returned  to  America  with  added  re- 
spect for  her  own  country.  She  is  pretty,  with  her 
black  eyes,  like  jet  beads,  set  in  a  low,  broad  fore- 
head, over  which  the  silky  auburn  hair  droops  in 
frizzled  abundance.  She  has  a  very  nasal  voice,  a 
very  lovely  figure,  and  a  careless,  daring,  uncon- 
ventional manner  that  is  an  acknowledged  success. 
Everybody  likes  her,  and  everybody  disapproves 
of  her.  She  has  made  herself  a  sort  of  power 
through  universal  disapproval.  She  is  considered 
very  bad  style,  and  yet  nobody  ever  tells  her  that 
she  is  so  —  not  even  her  most  intimate  feminine 
friends.  Of  course,  from  the  stand-point  of  pure 


256  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

money,  she  is  a  great  match.  But  it  is  not  solely 
this  that  makes  her  so  decided  a  belle.  I  suppose 
it  is  because  she  is  so  internationally  amusing. 
Nearly  all  that  she  says,  in  her  sharp,  light,  brisk 
way,  has  a  sort  of  patriotic  sting  in  it.  They  tell 
me  that  she  refused  a  young  duke  in  England  be- 
cause he  presumed  to  sneer  at  America.  It  would 
be  just  like  her  to  do  so.  She  is  always  waving 
her  national  flag  as  other  women  flirt  their  fans. 
I  think  her  vulgar,  and  yet  I  like  her.  That  is 
just  what  everybody  else  does,  I  find.  They  all 
think  her  vulgar,  and  yet  they  all  like  her. 

"  In  England,"  she  now  continued,  "  I  met  so 
many  original  people  !  I  dare  say  I  did  n't  go  into 
the  swell  set.  It's  very  hard  to  do  that,  you 
know,  the  English  put  on  such  awful  airs.  They 
are  like  their  houses  in  Piccadilly  and  Pall  Mall,  — 
not  a  decoration  showing  ;  everything  as  plain  as  a 
pipe-stem,  but  an  awful  amount  of  quiet  conceit 
and  self-importance  inside." 

"All  this,"  I  answered  quietly,  "is  apropos  of 
my  dislike  for  Mr.  Rodney  Clamp  ?  " 

"  Of  course  it  is  ! "  exclaimed  Miss  Carlisle. 
"  Rodney  Clamp  is  original.  He  goes  about  New 
York  without  an  English  drawl,  which  is  saying 
a  good  deal  nowadays,  and  with  a  conspicuous 
amount  of  brains,  which  is  saying  still  more." 

"  But  he  is  detested,"  I  objected,  "  and  for  an 
excellent  reason.  He  makes  capital  out  of  society. 
He  writes  for  newspapers  all  sorts  of  gossip  con- 
cerning the  people  who  admit  him  to  their  enter- 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAT.      257 

tainments.  It  is  said  that  he  lives  in  this  way. 
No  one  knows  how  else  he  lives,  if  he  does  not  live 
in  this  way." 

Miss  Carlisle  tossed  her  head.  The  gesture  re- 
minded me  of  a  mettlesome  colt's.  "Who  cares 
how  he  lives  ?  I  'm  sure  /  don't.  Let  him  live  as 
he  pleases."  Here  the  young  lady  fixed  her  eyes 
upon  me  with  an  impudent  seriousness.  "  You  are 
English  —  dreadfully  English,"  she  affirmed.  "  I 
don't  like  you  for  being  so.  I  don't  mean  that  I 
dislike  you  for  being  other  things.  That  is  why 
I  do  like  you — because  you  are  other  things  be- 
sides being  English." 

This  remarkable  piece  of  grammar  interested 
while  it  perplexed  me.  Its  inaccuracy,  however, 
was  not  hard  of  comprehension.  I  hastened  to 
reply : 

"  Only  three  months  of  my  life,  Miss  Carlisle, 
were  ever  passed  in  England.  But  if  it  is  English 
to  feel  disgusted  with  a  person  of  shocking  style, 
then  I  must  plead  guilty  to  your  indictment." 

My  companion  laughed.  "  Never  mind  how 
much  of  English  life  you  've  seen  !  "  she  declared. 
"  You  're  full  of  British  propriety.  Now,  I  hate 
British  propriety  as  much  as  I  hate  Britain  itself. 
The  idea  of  a  country  where  you  can't  get  ice- 
water  !  And  no  soda-water  fountains  !  And  then 
just  think  of  their  horrid  little  railway  com- 
partments, and  their  locomotives  with  silly,  thin 
screams,  instead  of  our  splendid,  noisy  engines! 
They  're  so  sluggish  over  there  !  They  Ve  got  no 


258  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

go  —  not  a  bit.  And  their  hotels !  They  have  n't 
one  that  can  touch  our  Fifth  Avenue,  or  Bruns- 
wick, or  Brevoort!  But,  as  I  said,  their  best 
people  are  all  so  tame  and  un-go-aheadative  I  " 

"Did  you  say  that?"  I  asked.  I  felt  that  she 
had  never  used  the  last  word  until  now,  for  its 
amazing  novelty  would  surely  have  caused  me  to 
remember  it. 

However,  this  bitter  outburst  had  no  concern 
with  Mr.  Rodney  Clamp.  And  it  is  of  Mr.  Rod- 
ley  Clamp  that  I  now  propose  to  make  disclos- 
ures. I  had  already  met  the  young  gentleman. 
He  was  not  more  than  five  and  twenty  years  old. 
He  had  a  composed,  sedate  face,  a  slim  fringe  of 
flaxen  mustache,  a  somewhat  dull  gray  eye,  and 
a  neat,  compact  figure.  He  was  thoroughly  com- 
monplace in  appearance.  You  would  never  have 
given  him  a  second  thought  if  you  had  met  him  in 
a  throng.  And  yet,  the  moment  you  heard  him 
speak,  you  had  a  sense  of  aggression,  of  assertive- 
ness,  of  impudence.  I  constantly  encountered 
him,  and  constantly  shunned  him.  But  shunning 
him  was  of  no  avail.  Whom  he  knew  he  cultivated, 
solicited,  and  buttonholed.  There  was  no  escap- 
ing him.  He  held  you  with  his  lazy  and  opaque 
eye,  as  the  Ancient  Mariner  used  to  do  with  his 
glittering  one.  He  somehow  had  the  sinister  art 
of  paralyzing  my  desires  to  treat  him  rudely.  Just 
when  I  was  on  the  point  of  giving  him  astern  rebuff, 
he  would  say  something  so  amazingly  self-confi- 
dent and  audacious  that  T  forgot  indignation  in 
sheer  surprise. 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY.      259 

There  was  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Clamp  pushed  his 
way  everywhere.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to 
push  stoutly,  too,  since  he  usually  met  the  solid 
insistence  of  disapproval  and  dislike.  But  the 
steadiness  with  which  he  pushed  was  phenomenal. 
It  never  relaxed  or  wavered.  It  was  like  the  reso- 
lute motion  of  a  heavy  barge  through  a  creek  full 
of  obstructive  logs. 

I  have  few  hatreds,  and  not  many  aversions; 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  I  execrated  Mr.  Rodney 
Clamp.  His  connection  with  the  "  society  col- 
umn "  of  the  newspapers  had  always  struck  me  as 
specially  odious.  I  considered  him  as  the  worst 
type  of  the  American  adventurer ;  he  had  not  even 
the  saving  grace  of  suavity.  A  little  plausible 
adroitness  might  have  made  him  far  more  endura- 
ble. As  it  was,  he  went  to  work  rough-handed 
and  dogged.  He  seemed  to  mutter  between  set 
teeth,  "  I  will  get  myself  received ; "  and  he  un- 
questionably succeeded.  His  unpopularity  was 
something  pitiable  ;  but  he  bore  himself  as  though 
quite  unconscious  of  it.  I  suspected  that  he  se- 
cretly enjoyed  it  as  a  grim  and  solemn  joke. 

"  Pretty  mixed  here  to-night,  Manhattan,  is  n't 
it?  "  he  said  to  me  a  few  evenings  after  my  con- 
versation with  the  Europe-hating  Miss  Carlisle 
regarding  him.  We  were  both  guests  at  a  large 
ball  given  by  a  certain  family  whose  name  there  is 
no  need  of  recalling.  I  suppose  that  the  scathing 
phrase  of  "new  people"  applied  pertinently 
enough  to  our  entertainers.  I  had  not  given  the 


260  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

matter  of  their  recent  social  origin  a  thought  my- 
self; I  had  come  there  to  meet  two  or  three  good 
friends  of  the  other  sex.  I  did  not  care  whether 
the  ball  was  mixed  or  not ;  and  I  did  not  at  all 
relish  the  idea  of  Mr.  Clamp  informing  me  so. 

"  I  am  not  in  the  habit,"  I  now  replied  off-hand- 
edly,  "  of  saying  or  thinking  hard  things  about 
my  hosts  and  hostesses." 

"  That 's  a  pretty  good  snub,"  said  my  assailant 
in  his  slow,  torpid  way.  He  then  laughed,  and  it 
was  always,  when  he  laughed,  as  though  this  sound 
were  made  without  the  slightest  real  mirth ;  the 
clatter  of  peas  in  a  tin  measure  would  have  had 
quite  as  much  human  significance.  "I  say  !"  lie 
went  on  imperturbably,  "  won't  you  introduce  me 
to  Miss  Westchester  ?  I  'd  be  very  much  obliged 
if  you  would." 

I  felt  nonplussed  in  spite  of  myself.  Miss 
Westchester  was  a  reigning  belle ;  she  usually 
chose  her  acquaintances  with  a  good  deal  of  saucy 
arrogance ;  she  was  permitted  all  sorts  of  caprices 
because  of  her  beauty  and  personal  fascination.  I 
felt  sure  that  she  would  not  desire  to  know  Mr. 
Clamp,  and  that  after  I  had  obtained  her  sanction 
of  the  introduction  she  would  regard  me  as  having 
inflicted  upon  her  an  undeserved  annoyance.  But 
I  introduced  Mr.  Clamp,  nevertheless.  I  felt  that 
he  was  gaining  his  point  in  a  coldly  reckless  way  ; 
that  he  was  using  me ;  that  he  was  giving  me  the 
choice  between  a  definite  insolence  to  him  and  a 
courteous  concession.  I  knew  perfectly  well  that 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY.      261 

lie  would  not  much  have  minded  my  being  rude, 
and  that  he  reckoned,  so  to  speak,  upon  my  aver- 
sion toward  any  rudeness.  Just  so  far  as  my  wish 
to  behave  like  a  gentleman  would  go,  he  was  stol- 
idly willing  to  employ  and  profit  by  it.  My  prin- 
ciples and  theories  were  so  many  rungs  of  a  ladder 
to  him.  As  long  as  the  ladder  held  out,  he  would 
climb  it,  determinedly  and  nimbly.  If  I  had  con- 
sidered him  in  any  sense  a  good  fellow,  if  I  had 
not  thought  him  a  person  whose  blood  was  ichor 
and  whose  views  and  tenets  were  wholty  coarse 
and  ignoble,  I  should  have  looked  on  his  request 
as  one  to  be  granted  with  the  best  good  will. 

"Your  friend  has  won  a  victory  over  me,"  I  said 
a  little  later  to  Miss  Carlisle,  who  chanced  to  be 
among  the  assembled  company.  And  when  I  had 
explained  myself,  Miss  Carlisle  gave  her  pretty 
head  a  decisive  toss,  and  exclaimed : 

"  Why  on  earth  should  he  not  ask  you  to  present 
him  to  Miss  Westchester  ?  " 

"  Oh,  for  no  reason  on  earth,"  I  conceded. 
"  True,  I  scarcely  know  him.  However,  it  makes 
no  difference.  If  you  do  not  choose  to  understand, 
you  will  not,  I  suppose." 

"  Understand ! "  echoed  Miss  Carlisle.  "  I  under- 
stand excellently.  And  yet  you  maintain  that  you 
are  not  cut  after  an  English  pattern." 

"  Oh,  come  !  "  I  said.  "  Leave  poor  England 
alone.  You  can't,  though,  I  am  afraid.  You  are 
always  making  occasions  to  fling  a  slur  at  her.  If 
one  should  talk  of  the  weather  in  America  to  you, 


262  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

it  would  be  an  excuse  for  reviling  the  London 
fogs." 

Miss  Carlisle  made  a  grimace.  "The  London 
fogs  ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  Ugh !  how  loathsome 
they  are !  I  hope  you  don't  compare  Mr.  Clamp  to 
one ! " 

"  Well,"  I  laughed,  "the  comparison  is  tempting. 
He  seems  desirous  of  penetrating  everywhere." 

My  harmless  bit  of  repartee  was  quite  ignored. 
Miss  Carlisle  had  found  an  opportunity  of  reviling 
England,  and  that  was  enough  to  make  her  forget 
even  Mr.  Rodney  Clamp.  I  listened  as  politely  as 
I  could  to  the  tirade  that  now  left  her  charming, 
rose-tinted  lips.  "  They  presume  to  compare  their 
Hyde  Park  with  our  Central  Park !  "  she  excitedly 
shrilled,  among  other  explosive  sentences.  "  It  is 
so  nonsensical!  A  flat  piece  of  stupid  country 
contrasted  with  a  beautiful  rolling  landscape ! 
And  their  horrid,  grim  houses  of  Parliament  too, 
—  what  are  they  beside  our  magnificent  marble 
Capitol  at  Washington?  And  their  Thames  beside 
our  Hudson !  —  a  muddy  little  stream  put  on  an 
equality  with  a  glorious,  noble  river !  " 

It  was  amusing  enough  to  hear  the  fervid  dis- 
course of  this  impassioned  patriot.  She  was  inter- 
esting as  the  extreme  reverse  type  of  the  Anglo- 
maniac  ;  she  once  more  represented  the  sharpest 
possible  re-action  against  that  worship  of  English 
ideas  which  has  so  often  been  charged  against  our 
people.  But  her  vehemence  did  not  at  all  concern 
Mr.  Rodney  Clamp,  whom  I  had  begun  to  regard 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY.     263 

as  a  purely  American  institution,  not  in  any  way 
to  be  dealt  with  from  an  international  stand-point. 

The  next  encounter  between  Mr.  Clamp  and 
myself  took  place  in  Fifth  Avenue  one  afternoon, 
just  as  I  was  making  my  way  toward  the  Metro- 
politan Club.  He  joined  me,  saluted  me  in  his 
dull,  determined  way,  and,  before  I  knew  it,  had 
asked  me  to  propose  him  as  a  member  of  tlxe  club 
itself. 

"I  can  get  Frank  Hackensack  to  second  me, 
I  'm  nearly  sure,"  he  pitilessly  proceeded.  "  I  'd 
like  to  be  in  there,  and  I  don't  know  any  one  with 
more  influence  than  you  've  got  to  give  me  the 
right  start.  Come,  now,  what  do  you  say?" 

What  could  I  say  ?  There  is  no  exaggeration  in 
stating  that  this  speech  caused  me  to  tingle  with 
dislike.  I  fixed  my  eyes  upon  Mr.  Clamp's  sedate, 
neutral  face.  I  hated  what  I  had  to  answer,  and 
I  hated  him  still  more  for  having  forced  me  to 
answer  it. 

"  The  simple  truth  is,"  I  said,  "  that  you  have 
made  enemies  on  the  governing  committee  of  the 
Metropolitan.  Or,  if  you  have  done  nothing  to 
make  them,  Mr.  Clamp,  you  are  believed  to  have 
done  a  good  deal." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked  in  his  hard, 
smooth,  repressed  way,  pausing,  and  thus  com- 
pelling me  to  pause  as  well. 

I  spoke  now  with  what  was  perhaps  a  pardon- 
able impatience.  "I  mean,"  was  my  somewhat 
sharp  reply,  "that  you  are  credited  with  the  author- 


264  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ship  of  certain  very  bitter  personal  comments  upon 
more  than  one  of  these  gentlemen,  in  the  so-called 
social  columns  of  a  particular  New  York  jour- 
nal." 

His  dull  eyes  avoided  mine  as  I  finished,  but  he 
laughed  his  chilly,  sombre  laugh.  "  Oh  !  "  he  said, 
"if  you  feel  that  way  about  it,  I  won't  trouble 
you.  Good-afternoon." 

I  saw  him  talking  with  Miss  Carlisle  at  the 
Effinghams'  party  that  same  evening.  As  I  passed 
them  both,  I  felt  sure,  from  the  way  his  look  fol- 
lowed me,  that  I  was  the  subject  of  their  converse. 
A  little  later,  when  he  had  taken  his  leave  of  Miss 
Carlisle,  I  joined  her. 

"I  suppose  your  friend,  Mr.  Clamp,"  I  said,  "has 
been  telling  you  that  I  treated  him  badly  this 
afternoon." 

"Do  you  say  that  from  a  guilty  conscience?" 
she  asked  with  a  quick,  challenging  little  frown. 

"Not  at  all,"  I  answered.  "You  and  Clamp 
seem  to  be  so  lie's,  however,  that  I  fancied  he  had 
confided  to  you  that  he  forced  me  into  giving  him 
a  rebuff." 

"Well,  he  did  say  something  of  the  matter," 
assented  Miss  Carlisle.  "You  accused  him  of 
writing  personalities  in  the  newspapers.  But, 
good  gracious !  what  if  he  does  ?  Men  do  it  in 
England,  and  yet  belong  to  the  good  London  clubs, 
go  to  lots  of  swell  houses,  hold  their  own  nearly 
everj^where." 

"  It  is  always  poor  England  with  you,"  I  mur- 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY.      265 

mured,  smiling.  "You  seem  to  live  in  a  perpet- 
ual atmosphere  of  transatlantic  comparisons.  I 
am  sure  I  should  think  the  persons  to  whom  you 
refer  no  less  objectionable  for  being  English." 

"  Oh,  not  a  bit  of  it ! "  asseverated  Miss  Carlisle. 
"If  poor  Mr.  Clamp  had  come  over  here  from 
London,  and  said  '  I  farncy '  for  '  I  guess,'  and 
turned  up  his  nose  immensely  at  America,  you 
would"  — 

But  I  was  mercifully  saved  from  listening  further 
to  this  incorrigible  partisan;  for  just  then  two 
gentlemen  approached  us,  and,  while  they  were 
greeting  my  companion,  I  seized  the  chance  of  dis- 
creetly if  not  valorously  slipping  away. 

A  few  days  later  I  happened  to  skim  over  the 
columns  of  a  well-known  New  York  newspaper. 
Under  the  heading  of  "  society  news,"  I  read  an 
almost  virulent  paragraph  concerning  myself.  It 
called  me  a  snob,  a  prig,  an  egotist,  and  a  person 
who  had  aims  to  become  a  member  of  the  govern- 
ing committee  of  the  Metropolitan  Club,  which 
would  by  no  means  encourage  any  such  aspira- 
tions on  the  part  of  this  "  conceited  young  Knick- 
erbocker." 

I  immediately  surmised  the  authorship  of  the 
distressing  lampoon ;  and  I  was  very  angry.  I 
at  once  jumped  into  a  cab,  and  drove  to  the  edi- 
torial office  of  the  newspaper  which  had  printed 
the  objectionable  lines.  The  editor-in-chief  received 
me,  and  after  an  interview  of  a  good  hour  I  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  at  the  positive  truth.  Mr.  Rod- 


266  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ney  Clamp  had  wreaked  his  vulgar  vengeance,  just 
as  I  had  supposed. 

That  night  I  led  the  german  at  an  entertainment 
given  by  a  relative  of  mine,  young  Mrs.  Matchwell. 
She  had  been  Elsie  Manhattan,  and  she  had  married 
John  Matchwell,  an  Englishman  in  a  good  ship- 
ping-house here,  and  one  of  the  best  and  kindest 
fellows  I  know.  Elsie,  my  third  or  fourth  cousin, 
is  the  most  amiable  and  genial  of  young  matrons. 
I  don't  think  there  is  any  horrid  imposition  that 
you  could  not  put  upon  her  with  impunity.  I 
soon  saw  that  Mr.  Clamp  was  present  among  the 
guests,  and  I  made  bold  to  inquire  of  my  meek, 
sweet  kinswoman  why  she  had  asked  him. 

Elsie  shook  her  flaxen  head,  and  told  me  that 
she  had  not  consciously  asked  him.  "You  say  that 
his  name  is  Clamp  ?  "  she  went  on.  "  No,  Mark, 
I  am  quite  sure  that  nobody  sent  in  any  request 
for  an  invitation  to  a  person  of  that  name.  A 
number  of  invitations  were  desired  of  me,  as  is 
usually  the  case.  The  gentleman  came  in  with 
Miss  Carlisle.  I  think  she  must  have  brought  him 
ivithout  an  invitation." 

"  Really  ?  "  I  muttered  under  my  mustache. 

I  sought  Miss  Carlisle  quite  promptly.  "  Can  it 
be  possible,"  I  said,  "  that  you  have  brought  Mr. 
Clamp  here  without  an  invitation  ?  " 

She  gave  a  defiant  little  shrug  of  the  shoulders, 
but  her  face  almost  crimsoned  as  she  did  so. 

"He  —  he  came  with  me,"  she  began  to  stammer. 
"I  —  I  did  not  imagine  that  I  would  be  held  to 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAY.      267 

account  for  bringing  him.  In  your  beloved  Eng- 
land"— 

I  shot  in  a  quiet  interruption  here.  "England 
is  not  especially  beloved  of  me,"  I  said,  "  though 
very  far  from  hated.  And  if  you  mean  to  tell  me 
that  what  you  have  done  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Clamp 
is  done  by  English  people  of  good  standing,  then 
I  must  assure  you  of  your  mistake  —  of  your  very 
great  mistake.  As  regards  holding  you  to  ac- 
count, I  have  no  intention  of  doing  so.  That 
could  be  only  a  matter  for  our  host  and  host- 
ess." 

I  presently  glided  on,  thanking  my  good  stars  that 
I  had  committed  no  discourtesy  in  word  or  tone ; 
for  my  anger  was  excessive,  not  to  say  desperate. 

The  abominable  "push"  -I  almost  shame  to 
call  it  "the  American  push" — of  this  offensive 
Clamp  had  risen  before  me  in  all  its  complete  and 
hideous  crudity.  I  felt  spurred  by  a  desire  to 
humiliate  and  punish  him.  He  deserved  no  mercy, 
and  I  meant  to  give  him  none. 

A  little  later  I  saw  him.  The  rooms  were  by 
no  means  crowded,  and  he  was  crossing  one  of 
them  as  I  approached  him.  He  drew  backward  as 
he  perceived  me,  but  I  was  soon  face  to  face  with 
him.  I  at  once  addressed  him  without  an  instant 
of  hesitation. 

"  You  have  no  right,  sir,  to  be  here,"  I  said  in 
curt  undertone. 

He  grew  several  shades  paler.  But  a  sullen, 
spiteful  look  swiftly  answered  my  own.  "  You 


268  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

have  no  right  to  tell  me  so,"  he  muttered,  equally 
low  of  voice. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  have ! "  was  my  reply.  "  Mrs.  Match- 
well  is  my  relation,  and  has  just  informed  me  that 
you  came  here  without  a  card.  Mr.  Matchwell  is 
my  friend,  and  will  indorse  whatever  measures  I 
may  take.  What  I  desire  is  simply  explained.  It 
is  that  you  go  up  stairs,  get  your  hat  and  coat,  and 
leave  this  house  without  the  least  delay." 

"  For  —  for  God's  sake,  don't  send  me  away  like 
that !  "  he  faltered.  His  demeanor  had  suddenly 
become  abject.  I  saw  the  sweat  glisten  on  his  fore- 
head. He  glanced  uneasily  from  side  to  side,  as  if 
in  mortal  dread  of  observation.  He  looked  like  a 
hunted  thing  at  bay.  "I  —  I  am  engaged  for  the 
german,"  he  went  on.  "It  —  it  will  ruin  me  if 
you  — -  let  people  know.  And,  after  all,  what 's 
the  odds  ?  I  suppose  you  're  mad  that  I  wrote 
that  paragraph  in  '  The  Asteroid.'  Well,  I  was 
mad  at  you,  or  I  would  n't  have  written  it.  You  — 
you  've  got  me  in  your  power.  But  you  're  far 
ahead  of  me,  —  you  're  so  much  ahead  of  me  that 
you  —  you  should  n't  stoop  to  such  small  game  as 
I  am  !  I  —  I  've  got  to  push  my  way.  Leave  me 
alone  this  time  —  only  this  once  —  and  I  —  I'll 
promise  I  '11  never  repeat  the  offence  again.  I  '11 
—  I  '11  never  mention  your  name  in  print  as  long 
as  I  live.  As  I  said,  I  Tve  got  to  push  my  way. 
I  —  I  give  in  that  .1  've  done  wrong.  You  've  got 
me  where  the  hair's  short,  and  I  give  in.  Do  let 
me  have  a  last  chance  !  You  've  never  had  to  push 


THE  YOUNG  MAN  WHO  PUSHES  HIS  WAT.      269 

your  way.  You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  want  all 
tliis  sort  of  thing  and  have  to  struggle  for  it.  You 
were  born  to  it,  and  I  was  n't.  Those  newspaper 
articles  are  nearly  all  I  have  to  live  by.  I  grant 
I  had  a  grudge  against  you,  but  still  it 's  just  that 
sort  of  work  that  the  editor  of  'The  Asteroid'  likes 
and  wants.  So,  you  see,  I  had  a  double  tempta- 
tion. But  I  promise  you  —  yes,  I  promise  you 
upon  my  word  of  honor  —  that  I  will  never"  — 

I  turned  on  my  heel.  I  did  not  care  to  hear 
what  Mr.  Rodney  Clamp  (the  young  man  who 
"  pushed  his  way ")  had  to  tell  me  about  his 
"  word  of  honor."  I  felt  shocked,  disgusted,  sick- 
ened. And  yet  his  miserable  appeal  had  roused 
my  pity.  I  suppose  it  is  absurd  to  mention  pity 
in  connection  with  him,  but  I  somehow  could  not 
help  feeling  it.  I  thought  of  what  hereditary  and 
circumstantial  forces  had  gone  to  the  making  of 
this  human  nuisance,  who  "  pushed  his  way." 

He  never  troubled  me  again;  but  he  troubled 
others.  And  when  at  last  he  came  to  public  grief, 
and  fiery  young  Jack  Nassau  horsewhipped  him 
at  the  entrance  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  and 
when  everybody  (even  including  his  old  supporter, 
Miss  Carlisle)  had  a  contemptuous  word  for  him,  I 
still  retained  my  compassionate  feeling.  Indeed, 
I  continually  realized  and  insisted  that  the  times 
in  which  we  live  are  mainly  responsible  for  such  a 
malign  and  darksome  development  as  Mr.  Clamp, 
the  young  man  who  "  pushes  his  way." 


270  SOCIAL   SILHOUETTES. 


XXI. 

THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED. 

I  USED  to  say,  when  I  first  pecked  the  shell  of 
my  hobbledehoyhood  and  went  out  into  gay  New 
York  society,  that  Julia  Clymer  was  the  nicest 
girl  in  the  whole  world.  This  conviction  remained 
an  article  of  faith  with  me  for  several  years.  You 
might  exhaust  a  copious  list  of  adjectives  in 
searching  for  that  which  better  expressed  Miss 
Julia's  qualities  than  the  plain  and  homely  term  of 
"  nice."  Of  course,  her  orbit  was  one  of  frivolity ; 
but  then,  she  appeared  to  make  frivolity  sensible. 
She  was  garrulous  and  a  little  loud-voiced,  as 
nearly  all  American  girls,  when  clever,  are  apt  to 
be.  She  moved  and  walked  with  a  restlessness 
that  implied  the  nervous  temperament.  She  was 
exceedingly  blond,  and  had  eyes  that  were  like 
two  great  shining  amethysts  in  their  lucid  and 
lovely  color.  But  I  should  not  have  called  her 
pretty.  Her  chin  was  a  little  too  sharp  for  that, 
and  her  cheek-bones  rose  a  trifle  too  high.  Her 
arms  were  of  awkward  outline,  and  strongly  in- 
clined to  redness.  She  was  forever  assailing  them, 
those  poor  arms,  with  a  pathetic  land  of  satire. 
She  would  say  to  you,  perchance,  while  you  stood 


THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED,  271 

beside  her  some  evening  at  ball  or  party,  "Do 
you  think  my  arms  very  dreadful  to-night  ? " 
And  when  you  responded  with  the  most  eager  and 
chivalrous  of  negatives,  she  would  look  at  you 
with  a  sceptical  toss  of  the  head,  and  perhaps  ex- 
claim, "  No  nonsense,  now !  You  know  very  well 
that  my  unfortunate  arms  are  a  horror."  But  she 
had  an  exquisite  foot,  slender,  arched  at  the  in- 
step, and  just  small  enough  to  harmonize  with  her 
height  and  figure.  And  this  foot,  with  a  most 
elastic  and  graceful  tread,  could  glide  over  ball- 
room floors  in  tireless  activity.  Miss  Clymer  was 
passionately  fond  of  dancing,  and  she  danced  with 
wondrous  elegance,  buoyancy,  and  skill. 

But  this  gift  did  not  explain  her  popularity.  I 
do  not  know  if  any  particular  gift  could  be  said  to 
explain  it.  Perhaps  the  secret  lay  in  her  extreme 
worldliness  having  made  her,  after  all,  so  little  of 
a  real  mondaine.  She  looked  at  you  trustfully 
with  her  amethyst  eyes ;  she  made  you  think  how 
insincere  other  women  were  beside  herself;  she 
impressed  you  as  having  a  warm,  large,  sympa- 
thetic heart,  and  a  plenteous  fund  of  common 
sense.  It  is  true  that  her  conversation  was 
largely  made  up  of  sheer,  unadulterated  gossip ; 
but  then  she  gossiped,  somehow,  without  the 
touches  of  spleen,  the  mauvais  langue,  that  so 
many  other  women  employ  unconsciously.  She 
now  and  then  gave  me  flashes  of  intellect  too ; 
she  made  me  certain  that  she  was  capable  of 
insight,  reflection,  mature  judgment.  I  sometimes 


272  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

had  the  idea  that  she  was  a  girl  who  did  every- 
thing that  she  attempted  thoroughly,  and  that  in 
playing  the  rdle  of  a  fashionable  idler  she  ac- 
quitted herself  to  perfection  within  its  narrow 
limits  through  an  instinct  that  whatever  was  worth 
doing  at  all  was  worth  doing  well.  It  struck  me, 
at  such  times,  that  she  could  have  done  better  and 
higher  things  with  an  equal  success. 

She  had  no  coquetries,  no  sly  arts,  no  covert 
methods  of  fascination.  The  beam  of  her  gaze 
was  a  direct  one ;  she  possessed  an  almost  provok- 
ing candor,  simplicity,  innocence.  She  made  open 
avowal  of  her  love  for  society.  The  most  monoto- 
nous male  bore  was  sure  of  her  courtesy.  She 
had  her  marked  preferences,  but  she  contrived 
never  to  let  these  wound  the  unpreferred.  I 
should  not  use  that  term  "  contrived,"  for  she  con- 
trived nothing.  All  was  frank,  spontaneous,  vol- 
untary with  her.  As  a  result,  the  most  vicious 
envier,  the  most  malign  scoffer,  had  for  her  no 
weapon  in  his  armory  of  spleens.  Her  smile  was 
magical :  it  blunted  all  the  poniards  of  rancor. 

New  York — that  city  which  is  the  most  careful 
of  all  others  in  the  world  to  ask  your  right  to  be 
called  aristocratic,  because,  of  all  very  large  cities, 
it  probably  has  the  least  right  itself  to  think 
about  aristocracy  at  all  —  New  York,  I  say,  forgot 
to  make  an  inquiry  concerning  the  "  position  "  of 
Julia  Clymer.  For  myself,  I  forgot  to  ask  because 
everybody  else  forgot.  Possibly,  if  I  had  made 
investigations,  I  might  have  hit  upon  a  Poughkeep- 


THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED.  273 

sie,  an  Amsterdam,  or  a  Van  Tassal,  as  one  of'  her 
near  relatives.  But  I  am  sure  that  such  illustrious 
kindred  could  have  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  her  bright  and  genial  supremacy.  She  was  a 
belle  by  a  very  sweet  personal  and  presumptive 
right.  She  went  everywhere ;  she  knew  every- 
body. The  careful  dinner-givers  constantly  num- 
bered her  among  their  chosen  guests ;  the  proudest 
feminine  leaders  liked  to  have  her  seated  beside 
them  in  their  opera-boxes.  Her  superiority  of  place 
was  astonishing,  because  she  made  no  effort  to  se- 
cure it.  Her  stamp  of  selection,  of  ultra-fineness, 
of  social  rarity  and  importance,  were  still  more 
astonishing,  for  the  reason  that  there  were  no  half- 
shunned,  half-discountenanced  people  who  could 
lay  one  pang  of  hurt  self-love  to  her  account. 

"  I  think  Julia  Clymer  has  mastered  the  secret 
of  how  a  woman  can  triumph  socially,"  I  once  told 
myself  in  a  ruminative  mood.  "  I  don't  know  how 
she  has  mastered  it,  but  the  result  is  certain.  I 
don't  believe  that  she  herself  knows  either.  I 
fancy  it  is  more  than  half  just  there,  —  that  she 
herself  does  not  know  either." 

While  I  was  abroad  she  married,  and  when  I 
returned  I  heard  of  this  marriage.  It  had  been 
rather  sudden.  I  asked  people  about  it.  The 
conservatives  lifted  their  brows  and  shrugged 
their  shoulders.  The  liberals  (alas!  I  regret  to 
say,  much  fewer  of  number  in  New  York  society) 
answered  me  with  a  few  respectful  facts..  I  soon 
gathered  the  truth.  Miss  Clymer  had  married 


274  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"  out  of  her  set."  She  was  living  with  her  husband 
at  Yonkers;  he  had  a  small  estate  there.  Her 
wedding  had  been  quiet ;  she  had  sent  many  cards, 
but  had  asked  few  guests.  Her  husband  was  a 
lawyer,  and  had  written  a  work  on  political  econ- 
omy several  years  ago.  He  was  stated  to  be  rather 
plain  of  appearance ;  it  was  hard  to  find  any  one 
who  really  knew  him.  His  name  was  Kingdon. 

Another  good  year  passed  before  I  met  Mrs. 
Kingdon,  n£e  Clymer.  One  evening,  at  a  well- 
known  New  York  theatre,  I  chanced  to  occupy  an 
orchestra  chair  during  the  performance  of  a  certain 
play  which  had  been  damned  by  current  criticism, 
and  which  a  very  good  and  dear  friend  of  mine 
had  written.  I  wanted  to  like  the  play,  and  per- 
haps for  this  reason  I  did  like  the  first  two  acts 
of  it  much  better  than  I  would  otherwise  have 
done.  As  the  curtain  fell  for  the  second  time,  a 
gentleman  just  in  front  of  me  spoke  to  a  neighbor 
with  voice  unduly  and  perhaps  unwittingly  raised. 
The  gentleman  had  what  we  call  a  Bohemian  air ; 
I  have  scarcely  seen  a  more  crumpled  shirt-bosom 
or  a  more  murderously  crimson  necktie. 

"What  rubbish  this  piece  is!"  said  the  gentle- 
man to  his  companion.  "I  always  knew  that 

F had  not  a  ray  of  dramatic  talent.  Why 

could  he  not  content  himself  with  writing  bad 

verses  and  worse  novels?  But,  no  \  F stops  at 

nothing.  His  ambition  is  Napoleonic,  and  his  abil- 
ity is  Tupperian.  Don't  let  us  wait  for  another  act 
of  buncombe." 


THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED.  275 

It  was  on  my  lips  to  declare,  "  By  all  means,  do 
not ! "  for  I  have  a  deep  and  sound  fund  of  loyalty 
to  my  friends;  and  F 's  placid  scorn  of  his  crit- 
ics had  long  ago  roused  my  admiration,  while  it 
tempted  my  championship.  I  repressed  the  hostile 
impulse,  however,  and  turned  with  an  exasperated 
sigh  to  the  person  next  me.  It  was  a  lady,  and  she, 
too,  had  evidently  caught  the  acrid  outburst  just  in 
front  of  her.  A  moment  later  I  heard  her  say  to 
some  one  sitting  on  her  right : 

"  How  rare  a  virtue  justice  is !  Do  you  remem- 
ber, Wallace,  how  delightfully  clever  I  thought 
Mr.  F 's  last  novel?" 

In  another  instant  I  had  recognized  Julia  Cly- 
mer.  I  am  afraid  that  my  glad  surprise  caused  me 
speedily  to  forget  all  defensive  wrath  concerning 
my  poor  friend,  F .  She,  in  turn,  was  appar- 
ently well  pleased  to  discover  that  I  was  really  I. 
The  critical  gentleman  with  the  fiery  neck-gear 
must  have  had  vengeance  visited  upon  him  by  our 
many  mutual  sentences  during  the  continuance 

of  F 's  damned  play.  I  saw  him  fidget  and 

look  round  towards  us  once  or  twice ;  but,  if  he 
had  presumed  to  show  any  stouter  annoyance,  I 
should  doubtless  have  asked  him,  with  sarcastic  but 
polite  impudence,  why  he  remained  here  to  be 
doubly  bored. 

Mrs.  Kingdon  was  stopping  in  New  York  for  a 
few  weeks.  She  and  her  husband  had  temporarily 
deserted  their  Yonkers  home  for  winter  quarters 
in  town.  Would  I  not  come  and  see  them  at  their 


276  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

little  house  in  Thirty-Seventh  Street?  We  would 
have  so  many  things  to  talk  about !  I  must 
promise. 

Of  course  I  did  promise.  It  was  very  pleasant 
to  resume  my  old  acquaintance  with  the  blithe, 
unique  Julia  Clymer.  Meanwhile  she  had  pre- 
sented me  to  her  husband.  I  was  not  prepossessed 
by  Mr.  Kingdon.  His  smooth,  long,  tranquil  face 
suggested  to  me  a  vast  emotionless  gravity,  and 
nothing  more.  Later  on  he  impressed  me  less  as 
a  man  than  as  a  kind  of  incarnate  human  silence. 
I  have  nothing  further  to  write  regarding  him  per- 
sonally. He  may  have  been  a  very  noteworthy 
mental  force,  and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  he 
was.  But  I  saw  him  only  through  his  effects.  I 
saw  what  he  had  done  to  the  woman  whom  he  had 
married.  Like  steam,  electricity,  or  any  natural 
power  which  we  gauge  solely  by  its  results,  I 
learned  to  feel  for  him  a  solid,  wholesome  respect. 

The  change  from  Julia  Clymer  to  Mrs.  Kingdon 
simply  astounded  me.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
afternoon  that  I  dropped  into  her  pretty  drawing- 
room  to  drink  tea  with  her.  She  was  outwardly  just 
the  same.  She  laughed,  smiled,  spoke,  walked,  with 
the  same  characteristic,  individual  charm ;  but 
every  touch  of  the  old  frivolity  had  fled  from  her. 
There  were  several  ladies  present.  I  had  never 
seen  any  of  them  before ;  they  were  all  elderly 
ladies,  and  they  had  by  no  means  a  fashionable 
appearance.  I  sat  amazed  when  I  heard  Mrs. 
Kingdon  say  to  one  of  them : 


THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED.  277 

"  What  you  told  me  just  now,  Mrs.  Rowth,  — 
a  moment  before  Mr.  Manhattan  entered,  —  I  can- 
not grant  that  I  entirely  indorse.  The  strongly 
ethical  and  humane  element  in  George  Eliot's 
writings  appears  to  me  sufficient  in  itself.  If  the 
pietistic  motive  be  lacking  from  it,  the  religious 
one  is  not.  The  brilliant  Huxley  somewhere  says 
—  I  forget  just  where  —  that  the  clergy  are  now 
divided  into  three  sections, — an  immense  body  who 
are  ignorant  and  speak  out;  a  small  proportion 
who  know  and  are  silent ;  and  a  minute  minority 
who  know  and  speak  according  to  their  knowl- 
edge. Though  not  of  the  clergy,  I  think  George 
Eliot  knows  and  speaks  according  to  her  knowl- 
edge ;  but  she  puts  no  restraint  upon  grand  moral 
feeling.  Her  text  is  abstract  righteousness,  and 
it  does  not  need  the  authority  of  any  dead  prophet 
or  preacher." 

Not  long  afterward  she  said  to  another  of  the 
ladies : 

"Yes,  my  instincts  are  all  truly  republican. 
But  I  am  always  averse  to  the  least  violence  in  the 
way  of  forcing  human  development.  Comte  has 
expressed  his  aversion  to  this  tampering  with  the 
slow  amelioration  of  humanity  by  direct  progres- 
sive law.  Russia  only  rivets  her  bonds  closer  for 
a  century  each  time  she  massacres  a  Czar.  Her- 
bert Spencer  is  of  the  same  opinion,  you  re- 
member, he  drew  so  much  from  Comte.  For  my 
part,  I  consider  "  — 

It  is  my  impression  that  just  at  this  point  I  be- 


278  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

gan  to  feel  a  slight  yet  indistinct  humming  in  the 
ears.  Was  the  voice  that  I  now  heard  dealing 
with  George  Eliot  and  abstract  righteousness,  and 
the  folly  of  forcing  human  development,  and  the 
indebtedness  of  Herbert  Spencer  to  Comte  —  was 
it  trul}'  the  same  voice  that  I  had  heard,  not  so 
very  long  ago,  assure  me  that  a  Blue  Room  party 
at  Delmonico's  was  a  good  deal  pleasanter  than 
one  of  those  big  balls  in  the  grand  salon,  and  that 
Amy  Van  Horn  had  decided  positively  to  an- 
nounce her  engagement  next  week  to  Tom  East- 
river,  and  that  the  latest  daint}-  commands  from 
Paris  were  that  ladies  would  wear  heels  a  quarter 
of  an  inch  higher  than  ever  before  ? 

Could  I  be  dreaming  it  all,  or  was  this  radical 
change  a  clear,  tangible  fact  ? 

A  little  later  all  the  ladies  had  left  us.  The 
short  February  day  had  begun  to  darken.  I  sat 
alone  with  Julia  Clyrner  Kingdon  in  the  pleasant 
fire-lit  drawing-room.  I  had  asked  her  certain 
questions ;  she  had  answered  me  with  her  old 
fresh  and  sweet  laugh  ;  she  had  spoken  of  herself, 
of  her  marriage,  of  her  husband,  of  the  change 
that  a  comparatively  brief  time  had  made.  It  is 
useless  to  add  that  I  had  listened  with  keen  atten- 
tion. And  I  was  listening  still  as  she  said : 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Mr.  Manhattan,  rny  dear  Wallace 
woke  me  up.  Those  giddy,  silly  days  seem  as  if  I 
had  lived  them  in  another  star.  What  I  do,  I 
always  do  thoroughly.  You  used  to  say  that  of  me. 
You  remember  ?  "  (Ah,  how  like  the  other  Julia 


THE  LADY  WHO  REFORMED.  279 

she  was,  as  she  put  her  head  a  little  sideways,  and 
murmured,  "  You  remember  ?  ")  "  You  always 
seemed  different  from  the  rest  of  the  men  I  met. 
That  is  why  I  asked  you  to  come  and  drink  tea 
with  me  to-day.  Well,  as  I  did  everything  that 
T  did  thoroughly  then,  so,  when  I  reformed,  I 
reformed  thoroughly.  I  'm  not  a  bit  of  a  blue- 
stocking ;  I  don't  pose  a  particle  ;  I  detest  all  in- 
tellectual shams  and  attitudes.  But  I  have  an 
immense  contempt  for  the  way  American  women 
let  their  brains  go  to  waste.  I  think  it  horrible 
that  brains  should  be  out  of  fashion  in  American 
society.  I  am  afraid  that  I  think  American  society 
horrible  too.  I  knew  it  pretty  thoroughly,  you 
recollect.  Boston,  Washington,  Philadelphia,  —  I 
have  seen  them  all,  besides  New  York.  And  I 
shudder  when  I  recall  what  I  saw.  I  am  so  much 
happier  now  than  I  was  then.  I  was  always 
secretly  troubled  before.  I  could  not  explain  the 
unrest ;  it  was  like  an  inward  fever.  I  am  calm 
now.  I  have  found  the  intellectual  life.  I "  — 

She  suddenly  ceased.  A  hand-organ  outside  had 
paused  just  before  the  window  near  which  we  sat. 
It  was  playing  —  and  not  absolutely  badly  —  one 
of  Strauss's  waltzes,  —  a  waltz  that  we  had  often 
danced  to,  she  and  I,  in  past  pleasant  evenings 
together. 

My  friend  burst  into  her  sweetest  and  gayest 
laugh.  Our  eyes  met.  We  both  rose  simultane- 
ously. I  put  my  arm  about  her  waist,  and  we 
took  several  turns  together,  keeping  time  to  the 


280  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES, 

street  music  outside.  Still  laughing,  she  presently 
disengaged  herself  from  my  clasp,  and  sank  into  an 
arm-chair. 

"  Well?  "  she  exclaimed ;  "is  my  reformation  as 
perfect  as  you  supposed  ?  " 

"  It  is  more  attractive,"  I  replied,  "  because  it  is 
a  little  imperfect.  I  see  that  you  are  still  not 
wholly  devote.  A  lively  spark  of  the  original  Eve 
remains." 

"I  told  you  that  I  did  not  pose  or  attitudinize," 
she  said.  "  You  will  find  me  quite  sincere  and 
natural ;  though,  after  we  have  met  several  times 
more,  you  will  confess  the  change  in  me  to  be 
very  great." 

I  took  her  hand,  and  bent  over  it  with  expansive 
gallantry. 

"  No  change,"  I  murmured,  "  could  transform 
you  to  anything  different  from  the  most  charming 
woman  of  your  time." 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  281 


XXII. 

THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES. 

THERE  is  no  greater  proof,  I  think,  that  a  man 
who  has  known  New  York  well  in  its  nocturnal 
aspects  at  length  begins  to  find  himself  growing 
old,  than  when  he  feels  memorial  and  retrospec- 
tive sensations  about  the  "Fourteenth  Street  Del- 
monico's."  That  haunt  of  mirth,  relaxation,  and 
luxury  is  no  more.  Ilium  fuit.  It  is  true,  we  can 
meet  with  Delmonico  redivivus  on  the  corner  of 
Twenty-Sixth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue.  But  to 
us  whose  side-locks  are  getting  quite  maturely 
blanched,  whose  foreheads  are  in  some  cases  rather 
beamingly  denuded,  the  new  resort  is  very  far  from 
being  the  old  one.  I  fancy,  liberally  speaking, 
that  we  somewhat  maunder  and  prattle  when  we 
praise  the  former  restaurant  so  greatly  to  the  dis- 
credit of  the  present.  But  we  can't  help  it ;  we 
are  getting  old  ;  the  afternoon  shadows  are  stealing 
upon  us ;  and  it  is  only  fair  that  we  should  be  let 
to  have  our  fling  at  what  is  no  longer  clad  with  the 
rosy  haze  of  youth,  just  as  once,  with  our  college 
diplomas  yet  freshly  framed  and  our  digestions 
capable  of  a  Welsh  rare-bit  at  midnight,  we  had 
our  fling  at  the  elderly  papas  and  uncles  who 


282  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

praised  to  us  the  cakes  and  ale  of  the  past.  Still, 
I  think  that  we  can  now  make  a  good  case.  The 
cafe  in  Fourteenth  Street  was  more  spacious  and 
commodious;  the  dining-room  was  more  modest 
and  cosey;  the  upper  ball-rooms  were  more  con- 
veniently disposed  for  a  festal  crush,  and  more 
agreeably  suited  for  a  small  entertainment.  Of 
course,  I  admit  that  the  old  edifice  represented  a 
sort  of  fashionable  emergence,  for  New  York,  from 
its  long  previous  provincialism.  And  how  New 
York  did  emerge  there  !  What  a  sequence  of  glit- 
tering balls  !  What  a  glory  of  magnificent  ban- 
quets !  The  balls  are  all  danced  away  forever,  and 
the  banquets  forever  eaten  and  gone.  Many  of 
their  guests  are  dust.  The  old  story  of  all  great 
cities  repeats  itself  with  ours.  A  huge  carpet- 
store  flaunts  its  wares  on  the  site  of  that  well-re- 
membered and  most  sumptuous  of  inns.  Already 
our  children  (so  aggressively  grown  up)  point  to 
it  as  they  pass,  and  tell  each  other  that  "  Delmon- 
ico's  used  to  be  there"  I  think  we  ought  to  have 
the  place  called  Delmonico  Square.  We  don't 
pay  this  tribute  very  often  to  our  poets  or  famous 
writers ;  perhaps  there  is  a  better  reason  (as  the 
cynic  might  protest)  why  we  should  pay  it  to  the 
cook  who  has  so  successfully  set  so  many  national 
palates  tingling.  Who  was  the  French  wit  who 
said  that  one  of  the  shortest  ways  to  the  human 
heart  was  through  the  human  stomach  ?  I  confess 
I  don't  recall;  I  am  not  enough  of  a  devout 
gourmet. 


TEE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  283 

It  was  in  the  cafe  of  the  Fourteenth  Street  Del- 
monico's  that  I  first  met  Mr.  Archibald  Joyce. 
He  was  eating  a  mutton-chop,  cooked  in  some  sort 
of  fragrant  white  sauce,  with  a  little  curl-paper 
about  its  bone,  and  he  was  talking  to  me  about  my 
father,  whom  he  had  greatly  admired.  That  is  the 
way  his  image  dawns  upon  me  through  the  mists 
of  memory.  Somehow  I  had  drifted  into  a  chair 
near  him ;  I  believe  my  dead  cousin,  Bleeker  Man- 
hattan, had  presented  me  to  him,  and  then  hurried 
away ;  and  I,  if  it  be  not  an  error,  was  waiting  for 
some  male  friend  of  one  or  two  and  twenty  to  join 
me  and  go  to  some  theatre.  But  meanwhile  Mr. 
Joyce  was  very  civil  while  he  ate  his  mutton-chop, 
and  washed  it  down  with  red  wine.  He  must  then 
have  been  about  five  and  thirty,  —  an  immense 
age  to  my  adolescent  thinking  of  those  days.  He 
struck  me  then,  as  he  always  did  afterward,  and  as 
I  suppose  he  had  always  struck  everybody  else,  to 
be  of  extremely  unprepossessing  person.  His  fig- 
ure was  lank  and  ungainly,  though  very  slim.  His 
nose  was  a  severe  beak,  and  under  it  grew  a  scant 
black  mustache,  while  above  it  gleamed  small 
slaty-tinted  eyes.  He  was  dressed  in  evening  garb, 
and  with  great  care.  You  would  never  mistake 
him  (how  one  is  perpetually  dropping  into  that 
worn  rut  of  phrase)  for  anything  except  a  gentle- 
man. I  had  heard  of  him  as  a  person  of  social 
note,  I  could  not  recollect  just  when  or  how,  and 
in  my  rather  self-important  juniority  I  thought  it  a 
fine  thing  to  be  seen  chatting  with  him,  (There 


284  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

was  so  much  pleasure  once  in  the  triumph  of  being 
seen  with  this  or  that  accredited  nabob  !  If  Carlyle 
had  said  that  all  young  people  are  snobs,  I  think  he 
might  have  come  more  closely  to  a  universal 
truth.) 

Archibald  Joyce  quite  won  me  that  evening, 
and  on  leaving  him  I  could  scarcely  tell  why.  His 
appearance  was  so  much  against  him  that  I  never 
thought  of  him  for  days  afterward  without  sharply 
re-invoking  it.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  said 
nothing  at  all  clever ;  but  he  had  in  a  way  drawn 
me  out.  He  had  made  me  fancy  that  I  myself  was 
clever ;  that  I  could  get  along  with  tried  men  of 
the  world  like  himself,  and  be  liked  by  them.  He 
had  taken  an  apparent  keen  interest  in  me.  He 
had  asked  me  questions,  put  in  such  a  manner  that 
I  could  answer  them  with  a  touch  of  humor  or 
gayety  that  seemed  both  apt  and  fresh.  He  gave 
a  slow,  wise  laugh  at  them,  as  if  he  thought  them 
both  apt  and  fresh,  yet  did  not  quite  reveal  to  me 
what  a  good  opinion  I  had  made  him  form  of  my 
native  wit.  Later  that  evening  I  talked  of  him 
with  my  friend,  Tom  Gramercy,  during  the  entr'- 
actes of  the  theatre.  Tom  was  of  my  own  age, 
but  his  knowledge  of  New  York  society  was  some- 
thing which  I  then  thought  marvellous.  He  had 
three  elder  sisters,  all  reigning  fashionable  matrons, 
besides  having  been  reared  from  childhood  in  an 
atmosphere  of  active  dinner-giving  and  party- 
going. 

"Yes,"  declared  Tom   Gramercy,  "I've  often 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  285 

heard  Kate  and  Maggie  and  Elvira  speak  of  him. 
He 's  death  on  the  women,  you  know." 

"  Good  heavens ! "  I  said,  as  yet  unused  to  the 
vernacular  of  society.  "  You  speak  of  him  as  if  he 
were  King  Herod,  or  Thalaba  the  Destroyer." 

"  They  call  him  '  the  destroyer  of  firesides,' " 
giggled  Tom.  "  What  a  funny  name,  is  n't  it  ? 
They  say  that  he 's  brought  more  trouble  between 
husbands  and  wives  than  any  other  man  in  the 
country.  Nobody  knows  much  about  his  origin. 
He  seems  to  have  come  from  nowhere.  Nobody 
ever  heard  of  his  having  a  mother,  father,  or  any 
relation  whatever.  He  stands  entirely  alone  by 
himself,  as  it  were;  and  he  stands  very  well,  I  can 
tell  you." 

"  Is  he  rich  ?  "  I  questioned. 

"  He  is  seemingly  quite  well  off;  it 's  not  known 
just  where  his  money  comes  from,  as  he  is  a  com- 
plete flaneur.  I  don't  mean  that  he  makes  a  mys- 
tery of  it ;  I  dare  say  he  'd  be  willing  enough  to 
tell,  if  he  were  asked.  But  nobody  thinks  to  ask. 
He  is  taken  quite  as  a  matter  of  course.  Appar- 
ently, too,  he  has  no  age,  like  Zanoni  and  Caglios- 
tro.  I  believe  that  he  once  declared  himself  to  be 
forty,  and  immediately  about  twenty-five  people 
were  found  willing  to  swear  that  he  was  fifty- 
five.  Some  even  asserted  him  to  be  sixty-five. 
But  of  course  that  is  absurd.  It 's  equally  absurd 
to  give  him  any  age  at  all,"  continued  Tom,  who 
had  a  turn  for  saying  odd,  crisp  things  that  had 
made  him  rather  unpopular  at  college.  "In  the 


286  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

beginning  lie  was,  you  know.  Year  after  year 
bachelors  drop  away,  wearied  from  festivities,  and 
give  youngsters  like  ourselves,  Mark,  a  chance. 
But  Archibald  Joyce  has  never  dropped  away.  I 
suppose  that  off  in  remote  primordial  ages  he  had 
vast  difficulty  to  get  among  us,  and,  once  there, 
he  intends  to  stay  on  indefinitely.  Then  there  's 
another  reason,"  pursued  my  informant  with  his 
driest  intonation  :  "  he  has  such  a  good  time  going 
about." 

"  Why  a  better  one  than  other  men  have  ?  "  I 
questioned. 

"  Ob,  I  mean  destroying  firesides,  you  know," 
said  Tom. 

I  felt  like  breaking  into  a  volley  of  laughter. 
"  How  ludicrous  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  You  can't  mean 
it!" 

"  I  do  mean  it." 

«mfn 

"He." 

"  But  he 's  as  ugly  as  a  gargoyle." 

"  I  suppose  if  a  gargoyle  were  made  alive,  and 
wanted  to  attract  a  woman,  it  would  succeed  after 
a  few  lessons  from  Archibald  Joyce.  Exactly 
what  he  does  has  not  yet  been  discovered ;  but  it 
is  something  dreadfully  '  fetching,'  I  assure  you." 
Here  Tom  Gramercy  lowered  his  voice,  looking 
about  him  among  the  orchestra-stalls  which  sur- 
rounded us.  "  Why,  my  dear  Mark,"  he  went  on, 
a-brim  with  the  gossip  which  his  pleasure-loving, 
feather-weight  family  of  modish  idlers  had  poured 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  287 

into  him  for  years,  "  I  know  not  less  than  four 
houses  in  New  York  which  that  man  is  forbidden 
to  enter :  if  he  did  enter  any  of  them,  there  'd  be 
a  divorce  or  a  separation.  And  I  know  at  least 
six  women  in  New  York  who  have  seriously  com- 
promised themselves  by  his  attentions." 

"Oh!"  I  murmured  almost  incredulously,  "is 
New  York  ever  like  tliat  ?"  I  soon  had  reason  to 
discover  that  New  York,  as  regarded  certain  of  its 
cliques,  was  very  decidedly  like  that.  But  I  was 
thinking  then  of  my  pure,  sweet  mother,  with 
her  high-bred  air  and  her  sound  hatred  of  all 
social  laxities.  She  had  given  me  a  different 
account  of  New  York  morals  from  what  later  ex- 
periences in  certain  directions  supplied  to  me. 
But  then  there  is  a  feminine  chastity  that  throws 
a  sort  of  white  light  on  what  it  nears;  and  I 
think  hers  glowed  with  just  that  kindly  beam. 

Shortly  after  my  conversation  with  Tom  Gram- 
ercy  on  the  subject  of  Mr.  Archibald  Joyce,  the 
latter  gentleman  departed  for  Europe,  where  he 
remained  for  several  years.  I  felt  like  a  veteran 
of  the  ball-room  when  I  again  shook  hands  with 
him.  I  had  aged,  developed,  improved,  degener- 
ated, —  whatever  you  will,  —  to  a  great  extent,  in 
the  seasons  between  our  last  meeting  and  now. 
But  Mr.  Joyce  looked  precisely  the  same  as  when 
I  watched  him  eat  his  chop  en  papillate,  and  heard 
him  tell  me  that  my  father  was  the  best  whist- 
player  at  the  Metropolitan  Club.  His  masterly 
ugliness  had  not  abated  one  degree.  His  prepos- 


288  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

terous  nose  still  existed  unchanged,  and  his  dull, 
small  eyes  were  opaque  as  ever.  I  still  thought 
him  one  of  the  ugliest  men  I  had  ever  seen. 

I  soon  found  out  that  he  had  accompanied  home 
a  certain  Mrs.  Gordon  Adrian ce.  Mrs.  Adriance, 
as  I  learned,  had  been  living  for  two  or  three 
years  abroad.  She  had  married  her  husband  in 
some  rather  obscure  German  town,  and  had  at 
length  returned  with  Mr.  Joyce  as  her  persistent 
devotee.  Her  husband  was  an  American,  but  an 
American  whom  no  one  in  New  York  knew. 
Noses  were  turned  up  haughtily  in  Upper  Ten- 
clom ;  (how  I  hate  to  write  the  coarse,  thread-bare 
slang !)  and  caste  decided,  in  a  body,  not  to  know 
this  obscure  Mrs.  Gordon  Adriance. 

But  Archibald  Joyce  coolly  and  firmly  intro- 
duced his  new  friend,  and  in  a  few  weeks  he  had 
made  her  a  belle.  She  was  undoubtedly  pretty. 
She  had  the  sort  of  blond  hair  that  could'be  lifted 
loosely  over  a  head  of  such  graceful  outline  that 
the  dense,  shining  breadth  gave  its  contour  an 
added  charm ;  and  she  always  wore  her  hair  thus 
arranged.  Gossip  rioted  as  to  who  Mrs.  Gordon 
Adriance  was.  Discovery  soon  satisfied  itself  that 
she  had  been  the  daughter  of  a  Sixth  Avenue  mil- 
liner. But  this  dire  fact  did  not  disturb  the  gay 
world  half  as  much  as  one  might  have  supposed. 
Archibald  Joyce  was  seen  with  her  in  opera-boxes, 
in  stalls  of  theatres,  in  the  street,  everywhere. 

He  gave  her  a  certain  cachet;  he  procured  invi- 
tations for  her;  he  made  her  a  person  of  impor- 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  289 

tance.  She  was  not  by  any  means  a  social  success; 
she  was  too  determinedly  stupid.  But  she  was 
notable,  and  had  devotees,  if  not  admirers. 

Her  husband  went  where  she  went,  as  a  rule, 
and  he  was  unquestionably  vulgar  and  coarse.  He 
had  a  squat  figure,  a  little,  unshapely  nose,  a  pair 
of  fiery  red  whiskers,  an  eye  as  dull  as  zinc.  He 
did  not  seem  at  all  fond  of  his  wife,  and,  when  I 
got  to  know  him  and  talk  with  him,  I  soon  became 
convinced  that  he  cared  more  for  the  champagne 
and  terrapin  that  he  found  at  entertainments  than 
for  any  other  attraction.  He  was  horrid ;  and  I 
dare  say  that  I  showed  him  I  thought  so. 

Meanwhile  his  wife  continued  a  sort  of  novelty. 
I  was  civil  to  her,  and  perhaps  my  civility  helped 
to  preserve  her  popularity.  At  the  same  time  I 
was  sorry  for  her.  I  knew  very  well  that  Archi- 
bald Joyce's  devotion  meant  either  her  ruin  or  her 
misery.  He  was  perpetually  at  her  side ;  he  was 
like  her  shadow.  I  understood  him  now.  I  had 
found  out  just  what  sort  of  man  he  was.  I  felt  a 
sincere  hate  for  him,  and  I  had  a  strong  desire  to 
tell  him  of  this  hate. 

The  indifference  of  Mrs.  Adriance's  husband 
rather  increased  my  secret  ire.  The  more  I  thought 
of  just  what  a  man  Archibald  Joyce  was,  and  just 
what  he  was  now  doing,  the  more  I  felt  my  spleen 
swell. 

I  spoke  of  the  matter  to  one  or  two  intimate 
friends.  They  laughed  in  my  face.  "  Archibald 
Joyce !  "  they  said*  "  Why,  my  dear  Manhattan, 


290  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

how  foolish  you  are  !  He  's  been  known  for  years 
as  just  that  sort  of  fellow.  You  surely  won't  set 
yourself  up  as  a  teacher  of  morals  to  a  man  like 
that !  If  you  do,  you  '11  find  it  dangerous  work. 
Better  let  the  whole  thing  alone.  Be  sensible,  and 
don't  say  a  word  or  do  a  thing." 

But  I  did  not  choose  to  take  such  advice.  If 
Gordon  Adriance  had  been  a  real  man,  and  not  a 
common,  worthless  creature,  I  might  have  done 
nothing  whatever.  As  it  was,  I  took  the  chance 
to  meet  Archibald  Joyce  one  evening  in  the  Met- 
ropolitan Club.  I  joined  him  just  as  he  was  about 
ordering  a  cup  of  coffee,  after  dining. 

"  Won't  you  have  something,  Manhattan  ?  "  he 
said  to  me,  seeing  that  I  was  close  at  his  side. 

"Thanks,  no,"  I  answered.  I  dropped  into  a 
seat  immediately  afterward.  I  fixed  my  eyes  very 
deliberately  and  steadily  upon  his  ugly  face. 
"Don't  you  think  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
yourself  ?  "  I  said. 

He  started  as  I  have  hardly  ever  seen  a  man 
start  before. 

"What  do  you  mean?  "  he  asked. 

"I  mean  that  you  are  at  your  old  tricks,"  I  said 
very  calmly.  "How  long  ago  did  you  get  the 
name  of  the  destroyer  of  firesides?  A  very  pic- 
turesque name,  Joyce,  is  n't  it  ?  I  think  you  got 
it  a  good  many  years  ago.  Eh  ?  " 

He  turned  as  white  as  the  cigarette  that  he  was 
rolling. 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  291 

"  You  are  insolent,  sir,"  he  said  to  me  under  his 
breath. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  I  answered. 

"I  do  think  so." 

"  As  you  please." 

He  rose.  I  remained  seated.  But  my  gaze  did 
not  leave  his  face.  I  saw  that  he  was  trembling. 

"  There  are  rules  in  this  club,  Mr.  Manhattan," 
he  said,  "  which  protect  a  member  from  inso- 
lence." 

"  You  are  perfectly  right,"  I  replied.  "  I  have 
not  insulted  you.  If  you  think  that  I  have  done 
so,  you  have  the  right  of  appealing  to  the  govern- 
ing committee." 

"  I  shall  appeal  to  them,"  he  returned,  hoarse 
with  anger. 

"I  don't  think  that  you  will,"  I 'said.  I  was  still 
quite  composed.  "  I  don't  think  you  will  dare." 

He  met  my  look  squarely.  He  tossed  his  ciga- 
rette away,  and  then  sank  on  the  lounge  beside 
me.  I  had  always  thought  him  ugly,  but  I  had 
never  seen  him  so  ugly  as  then,  in  his  agitation, 
his  disarray. 

"  For  God's  sake !  Mark  Manhattan,"  he  said 
huskily,  "  what  do  you  mean  ?  What  —  what  are 
you  driving  at  ?  " 

I  felt  very  cruel.  I  don't  know  that  I  have  ever 
had  a  more  thoroughly  heartless  mood  than  just 
then. 

"  Destroyer  of  firesides,"  I  said.  I  laughed  as 
the  words  left  my  lips. 


292  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

He  scowled  at  me.  He  was  trembling  so  that 
he  could  not  conceal  the  tremor. 

"Come,  now,"  he  stammered,  "tell  me  what 
you're  up  to.  You  —  you  wish  to  insult  me,  do 
you,  Mark?  Why  don't  you  have  some  witnesses, 
then  ?  Why  do  you  speak  like  this  without  any- 
body to  hear  you  ?  " 

"  Do  you  want  witnesses  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  want  you  to  explain  yourself." 

"  There  is  no  necessity  of  that." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  you  should  cease  trying  to  destroy 
the  reputation  of  a  perfectly  pure  woman." 

I  heard  him  grind  his  teeth.  He  was  so  choked 
with  rage  that  he  could  make  no  answer.  I  put 
my  hand  on  his  arm,  and  felt  it  recoil  as  I  did  so. 

"  You  are  a  scamp,  Joyce,"  I  said  very  quietly. 
"  You  have  been  rather  priding  yourself  on  being 
a  scamp  for  a  good  many  years  past.  There  are 
several  men  like  you  in  New  York  society, — vam- 
pires, whom  people  somehow  permit  to  exist  here. 
You  spoke  of  the  governing  committee  of  this  club. 
Let  me  see  you  dare  to  speak  of  this  matter  before 
them.  And  never  address  a  word  to  Mrs.  Gordon 
Adriance  again  —  never  one  word,  remember.  If 
you  do,  I  will  publicly  cane  you.  I  promise  you 
that  I  will.  Your  reputation  as  the  destroyer  of  fire- 
sides may  be  very  well  founded  and  secure,  but  I 
propose  to  interfere  with  its  permanence." 

I  rose  as  I  finished  speaking.  I  had  used  a  very 
low  tone  of  voice.  Archibald  Joyce  remained 


THE  DESTROYER  OF  FIRESIDES.  298 

seated,  and  looked  up  into  my  face  with  an  ex- 
pression that  surprised  me  for  its  mildness.  I  had 
expected  some  sort  of  outburst ;  but  none  came, 
and  I  walked  away. 

Shortly  afterward  I  left  the  club  and  went 
home.  I  did  not  sleep  a  wink  that  night.  I  told 
myself  that  I  had  behaved  like  a  bully,  that  I  had 
disgraced  myself  as  a  gentleman.  Then  came  the 
re-action.  I  declared  to  myself  that  I  had  done 
right;  that  I  had  used  the  bludgeon  where  the 
bludgeon  was  needed ;  and  that  no  one  could  really 
blame  me,  all  circumstances  of  the  case  being  con- 
sidered. 

I  became  so  distressed  with  the  whole  affair, 
I  decided  so  often  that  I  had  been  a  Quixotic 
fool,  I  fumed  in  sercet  so  much,  and  had  so  many 
twinges  of  conscience,  that  more  than  once  I  was 
on  the  verge  of  going  up  to  Archibald  Joyce  and 
begging  his  pardon. 

Ought  I  to  have  done  so  ? 

If  I  had  attempted  it,  I  don't  think  he  would 
have  done  anything  but  turn  his  back  on  me. 
When  we  meet  now,  his  face  is  usually  a  thunder- 
cloud. I  think  I  have  made  about  as  solid  an 
enemy  in  that  quarter  as  it  would  be  possible  to 
conceive  of. 

But  he  has  never  spoken  to  Mrs.  Gordon 
Adriance  since  then.  I  know  this  from  her  own 
pretty  lips.  Is  he  afraid  of  my  cane?  Is  he  a 
coward  as  well  as  a  destroyer  of  firesides  ?  I  think 
most  destroyers  of  firesides  are  cowards. 


294  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XXIII. 

A  TYPICAL  HEW  YOKE  GIEL. 

I  HAVE  been  repeatedly  asked  by  foreigners 
visiting  this  country  whether  caste  and  all  its 
attendant  snobberies  exist  here  as  they  exist  in 
other  lands.  I  usually,  on  these  occasions,  pretend 
to  meditate  before  answering.  A  reply  always 
seems  to  gain  in  trustworthiness  if  not  too  glibly 
spoken.  But  there  is  no  necessity  for  any  medita- 
tion whatever.  My  response  is  really  quite  at  the 
tip  of  my  tongue. 

"  For  the  country  at  large,"  I  say,  "I  should  find 
it  hard  to  speak.  I  know  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  and  all  those  important  cities,  but  ill. 
My  sojourn  in  each  has  been  only  for  a  brief  while. 
But  New  York  I  know  very  well.  I  have  reason 
to  do  so.  And  I  believe  it  to  be  about  as  posi- 
tively snobbish  a  city  as  the  globe  possesses." 

But  once  I  was  asked  whether  the  young  ladies 
of  New  York  were  specially  marked  by  this  same 
defect. 

"  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  much  more,  as  a  rule,  than 
our  married  women.  Youth  is  the  imaginative 
period,  and  all  ideas  connected  with  caste  appeal  to 
the  imagination.  The  patrician  element  in  New 


A   TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  295 

York  society  is  to-day  principally  made  up  from 
the  descendants  of  Dutch  immigrants.  There  are 
very  few  cases  in  which  these  Dutch  forefathers  of 
our  so-called  leading  families  were  people  of  the 
slightest  note  in  their  own  country.  The  Amster- 
dams  and  the  Van  Schuylkills  delude  themselves 
otherwise,  and,  if  the  delusion  were  a  harmless  one, 
there  would  be  no  objection  to  their  hugging  it." 

"  And  why  is  it  not  harmless? "  asked  my  foreign 
friend,  who  was  a  most  relentless  questioner,  and 
who  entertained  the  secret  project,  I  am  sure,  of 
writing  a  book  about  this  country  after  he  returned 
to  his  own. 

"It  is  not  a  harmless  delusion,"  I  answered, 
"because  these  people,  by  assuming  to  represent 
an  aristocracy  of  birth,  strike  an  ironical  blow  at 
the  very  roots  of  democracy.  How  many  hundreds 
of  Europeans,  in  the  year  1776,  would  have  confi- 
dently prophesied  for  us  an  almost  ideal  society 
when  a  century  had  passed !  And  now  a  century 
has  passed." 

"  That  is  not  much  for  a  nation.*' 

"It  is  a  great  deal  for  ours.  We  were  never 
born  like  other  nations.  We  were  in  one  sense  a 
colony,  in  another  a  usurpation,  and  in  a  third  an 
inheritance.  We  had  no  language  to  develop,  no 
barbarism  to  civilize,  no  feudalism  to  break  down. 
We  have  named  thousands  of  our  towns  and  a  few 
of  our  great  cities  (as,  for  example,  New  York, 
New  Orleans,  Boston,  etc.)  after  foreign  places. 
Our  one  century  should  have  been  what  five  were 


296  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

to  ancient  Rome.  Politically  our  air  was  full  of 
warnings ;  we  had  nothing  to  live  down,  and 
everything  to  live  up  to.  Socially  we  had  un- 
counted European  blunders  to  admonish  us  and 
keep  us  on  our  guard.  Yes,  our  century  should 
have  meant  at  least  half  a  chiliad,  as  far  as  con- 
cerns actual  progress.  Above  all  things,  pride  of 
birth  had  no  place  in  our  great  metropolitan  cen- 
tres. It  is  absurd,  it  is  preposterous,  it  is  self-con- 
tradictory and  grossly  inconsistent." 

"  But  is  it  pride  of  birth  ?  "  asked  my  friend. 
.  "Unquestionably.  New  York  society  is  con- 
stantly called  plutocratic.  It  is  no  more  so  to-day 
than  the  society  of  London  or  Berlin.  Money 
feeds  and  stimulates  its  aristocratic  energies, — that 
is  all.  And  every  year  makes  affairs  worse.  Every 
year  it  is  a  matter  of  greater  value  to  have  pos- 
sessed a  creditable  grandfather.  A  man's  or  a 
woman's  genealogical  tree  —  the  old  souvenirs,  the 
vieux  galons,  of  a  good  descent  —  are  constantly 
becoming  more  and  more  matrimonially  salable. 
4  Salable '  is  a  horrible  word  in  this  connection,  I 
admit,  but  I  can  think  of  none  less  brutal  and  at 
the  same  time  less  expressive." 

"  This  brings  us  to  the  original  subject  of  our 
discussion,"  said  my  friend  with  a  smile. 

"  Ah !  you  mean  the  young  ladies,"  I  answered, 
"  the  typical  New  York  girls." 

"Yes,  of  your" —     And  here  he  paused. 

"Of  our  aristocracy,"  I  said,  finishing  his  sen- 
tence for  him.     "You  foreigners  can't  concede  us 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  297 

one,  and  I  don't  blame  you  that  you  cannot.  I 
wish  that  we  were  only  unable  to  concede  it  to 
ourselves."  I  mused  for  a  moment  just  here,  and 
then  continued:  "The  vision  of  a  certain  very 
typical  New  York  girl,  of  precisely  the  class  which 
you  mean,  rises  before  me  at  this  moment;  and 
a  rather  pretty  story  is  connected  with  her.  I  say 
pretty  story,  because  it  has  so  picturesque  and 
unexpected  an  ending." 

"  I  should  be  charmed  to  hear  it,"  said  my  friend, 
with  a  show  of  interest  which  I  needed  no  vanity 
to  detect  as  genuine. 

"The  heroine,"  I  began,  "was  one  of  my 
innumerable  female  cousins.  Her  name,  like  mine, 
was  Manhattan.  She  was  the  daughter  of  my 
father's  eldest  brother,  a  man  who  had  received 
from  his  father  the  bulk  of  a  really  enormous  for- 
tune, made  somewhat  suddenly  by  the  great  rise 
of  real  estate  in  our  city.  This  custom  of  giving 
the  giant's  share  of  a  large  heritage  to  the  eldest 
son  of  a  family  is  far  more  common  with  us  than 
you  probably  suppose,  and  grows  more  general  as 
Anglo-mania  strikes  deeper  roots  into  our  soil. 

"  Mr.  Augustus  Manhattan,  my  uncle,  had  lived 
for  ten  years  in  England  and  France  when  he  at 
length  returned  to  this  country  with  a  daughter 
aged  nineteen  and  a  son  of  about  nine.  Three 
years  previously  his  wife,  who  had  been  a  Miss 
Fairfax  of  Virginia,  and  a  noted  beauty,  had  died 
in  Paris.  Immediately  upon  his  arrival  here,  my 
uncle  re-opened  his  spacious  mansion  in  the  lower 


208  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

part  of  Fifth  Avenue,  which  had  remained  vacant 
during  his  absence.  Cards  were  issued  to  all 
his  old  friends,  and  many  more  people  besides. 
Georgine,  his  daughter,  was  about  to  make  her 
debut  in  the  fashionable  world.  I  expected  to  find 
her  a  thorough-paced  foreigner  in  every  respect ; 
but,  to  my  surprise,  I  found  her  nothing  of  the 
sort.  She  was  just  as  American  as  if  she  had 
spent  the  last  ten  years  in  New  York  instead  of 
Europe.  She  had  met  many  Americans  in  Paris, 
and  had  principally  associated  with  these  during 
the  two  last  years  which  she  had  spent  exclusively 
in  the  great  capital. 

"  c  You  are  a  typical  New  York  girl,  Georgine,'  I 
remember  saying  to  her  after  we  had  had  several 
talks  together.  Those,  I  recall,  were  my  precise 
words,  and  they  rather  pleased  her,  for  she  had  (as 
you  will  afterward  think  singular)  a  great  respect 
for  her  native  city. 

"'That  is  what  I  should  like  to  be,  cousin 
Mark,'  she  replied.  4 1  belong  here,  you  know,  by 
birth  and  antecedents.  I  like  to  wear  the  mark  of 
my  nativity,  so  to  speak.  But  why  do  you  call 
me  what  you  have  just  called  me  ? ' 

" '  You  ask  so  many  questions,'  I  said,  '  about 
who  is  who ;  you  are  so  determined  to  have  only 
such  and  such  people  at  your  house  ;  you  've  such 
a  prodigious  horror  of  not  being  select.' 

" '  Of  course  I  have,'  returned  Georgine  primly 
and  a  little  crisply.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
she  could  make  herself  haughty  and  even  austere. 


A   TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  299 

But  her  beauty  (given  her  in  all  its  rare  bloom  by 
the  dead  mother  of  whom  she  was  an  image)  clad 
this  mood  in  a  most  bewitching  enticement.  She 
was  a  veritable  little  tyrant,  was  Georgine ;  her 
father  had  spoiled  her,  and  nearly  every  friend 
whom  she  had,  indorsed  his  indulgence.  She  was 
the  most  enchanting  creature  to  look  at ;  she  was 
like  a  swan ;  her  neck  and  bust  had  curves  to  set 
a  sculptor  dreaming  about  them ;  her  coloring- 
was  the  lily's  rather  tinted  than  blended  with  the 
rose's;  her  gold-shaded  chestnut  hair  fell  about 
her  delicate  head  with  a  splendid  natural  wave 
and  a  lovely  abundance.  She  had  almost  created 
an  enthusiasm  at  the  one  or  two  balls  to  which  her 
father  had  thus  far  taken  her. 

"  She  was,  without  exception,  the  most  absolute 
little  snob  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  But  you  did 
not  think  of  her  as  one ;  you  paid  her  involuntary 
homage,  as  you  would  have  paid  it  to  some  beau 
tiful  young  princess.  I  shall  never  forget .  her  at 
her  first  few  balls  of  the  opening  season.  She 
would  enter  the  rooms,  loaded  with  bouquets, 
gliding  along  in  the  most  exquisitely  graceful 
way,  between  her  father  and  myself.  She  would 
not  permit  us  to  leave  her  for  more  than  half  an 
hour  at  a  time.  We  were  her  royal  guards,  so  to 
speak,  the  sentinels  who  defended  her  approaches. 
She  would  constantly  murmur  little  questions  in 
my  ear.  .  .  .  'Who  is  that?'  she  would  ask;  'I  like 
his  way  of  dancing ;  there  is  something  about  his 
smile  that  pleases  me,'  and  words  to  this  effect. 


300  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

She  remembered  all  the  names  of  people  who  had 
been  prominent  here  in  past  days  ;  her  recollection 
in  this  respect  was  extraordinary ;  but,  besides  rec- 
ollecting, she  had  studied  and  investigated  'lists.' 
Men  besieged  her  hostesses  for  introductions  to 
her,  and  she  was  a  sovereign  belle  before  she  had 
been  in  her  first  public  salon  ten  minutes.  But 
though  she  never  refused  permission  to  have  Mr. 
This  or  Mr.  That  presented,  she  would  always 
make  sure  of  accurately  hearing  the  name  of  each 
aspirant,  and  sometimes,  when  she  found  herself 
unfamiliar  with  it,  or  when  its  bearer  had  already 
been  known  unfavorably  to  her,  she  would  give 
little  arch  and  audacious  excuses  which  rendered 
such  acquaintanceship  for  the  time  impossible. 
It  was  her  desire  to  know  intimately  only  the 
most  prominent  and  notable  men.  She  aimed 
at  a  tyrannical  exclusiveness.  She  was  always 
charming  to  those  of  her  own  sex  whom  she  con- 
sidered her  equals  in  birth  and  position ;  but,  if  she 
suspected  them  of  the  least  inferiority,  she  would 
put  into  her  smile  an  icy  gleam,  and  into  her  air  a 
merciless,  indifferent  languor. 

"After  a  while  her  daring  became  intensified. 
She  had  chosen  her  court,  so  to  speak,  and  estab- 
lished her  reign.  Her  self-possession  was  now 
superb,  and  her  occasional  rudenesses  were  simply 
abominable.  Those  admirers  whom  she  regarded 
with  clemency  were  like  vassals  to  her.  It  is  no 
hyperbole  to  state  that  in  the  little  realm  where 
ghe  ruled  the  wave  of  her  hand  or  the  toss  of  her 


A   TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  301 

head  was  like  the  swaying  of  a  sceptre.  She  was 
preposterously  self-willed ;  she  insisted  upon  hav- 
ing her  way  in  everything ;  but  she  did  it  all 
with  such  a  winsome  originality,  such  a  fascinating 
clue,  that  her  courtiers  obeyed  rather  gladly  than 
otherwise. 

"  ;  She  has  no  manners,  Mark,'  her  father  would 
say  to  me  in  his  grave,  reserved  way.  My  uncle 
had  sustained  a  deep  sorrow  in  the  loss  of  his  wife, 
and  he  bore  his  days  like  a  man  who  tries  to  carry 
a  rather  awkward  burden  with  as  much  gentle- 
manly ease  as  he  can  assume.  He  was  won- 
drously  gentlemanly,  without  doubt ;  he  looked  as 
if  he  might  have  been  a  distinguished  general,  tall 
and  gray  and  a  good  deal  furrowed,  but  always 
imperturbably  placid.  '  Her  mother  was  not  like 
Georgine.  Your  aunt  Alma  had  a  peculiar  repose 
and  dignity.  I  wish  you  could  dissuade  Georgine 
from  showing  her  likes  and  dislikes  in  so  glaring  a 
fashion ;  it  vexes  and  tries  me  very  much,  I  assure 
you.' 

"  It  vexed  and  tried  me,  also,  but  I  found  all 
argument  and  counsel  wholly  futile.  My  cousin 
usually  paid  me  the  compliment  of  listening  to  me 
for  a  brief  while,  and  then  her  despotic  interrup- 
tions assailed  me. 

"'Mark,  pray,  what  have  I  to  do  with  your 
horrid  theories  ? '  she  would  ask.  '  You  make  me 
think  of  my  little  brother's  tutor,  Mr.  Cobb. 
What  a  dreadful  name,  —  Cobb !  Mr.  Cobb  has  the- 
ories too.  I  don't  propose  to  bore  myself  being 


802  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

civil  to  men  with  whom  I  am  not  d'accord.  I 
can't  do  it,  and  I  will  not — voildtout!  There 
are  plenty  of  other  girls  whom  these  creatures  can 
talk  to.  I  have  my  preferences,  my  favorites.  Of 
course  I  am  snobbish.  I  desire  to  be.  Some  peo- 
ple are  vulgar  when  they  are  snobbish ;  I  could 
not  be  vulgar  if  I  tried.  And  of  course  I  am  con- 
ceited ;  but  in  Heaven's  name,  if  they  think  so,  why 
do  they  not  leave  me  alone  ?  The  other  evening 
I  heard  an  old  dowager  say  as  I  passed  her,  "  She 
has  the  face  of  an  angel ; "  but  a  companion  re- 
plied, "  She  stops  there,  however."  Now,  I  have 
not  the  least  ambition  to  be  considered  an  angel ; 
I  was  rather  pleased  by  that  bit  of  repartee.  Near- 
ly all  the  very  good  women  have  been  dull.  When 
I  was  abroad,  I  heard  that  the  great  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington was  once  asked  if  he  had  ever  known  fear. 
"  Yes,"  he  replied,  "  I  am  terribly  afraid  of  Lady 
So-and-So.  She  once  refused  me  two  extra  tickets 
to  Almack's."  I  envy  Lady  So-and-So  for  being 
the  subject  of  that  delightful  epigram.  The  secret 
of  enjoying  life,  as  I  take  it,  is  to  make  one's  self 
rare.  I  wish  that  good  society  was  a  walled  place 
with  only  one  gate,  and  that  I  always  carried  the 
key  in  my  pocket ;  I  assure  you  that  I  should  take 
excellent  care  of  that  key ;  I  would  never  lend  it 
to  a  soul,  for  fear  of  having  a  duplicate  manufac- 
tured. You  're  a  great  believer  in  science,  Mark. 
Well,  I  have  a  scientific  explanation  of  what  you 
are  pleased  to  consider  my  snobbery.  Poor  dear 
mamma  came  from  a  family  of  Virginian  planters. 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  303 

They  knew  how  to  hold  their  heads  high ;  I  've  in- 
herited the  tendency  —  that  is  all.  And  of  course 
I  prefer  living  out  my  real  nature  here  rather  than 
abroad.  In  Europe  all  sorts  of  American  canaille 
are  taken  up.  It  is  no  honor  to  have  a  duchess 
smile  on  one  there ;  she  is  sure  to  smile  the  next 
instant  on  some  dreadful  person  from  Kansas  City, 
or  East  Jerusalem,  O.  Besides,  society  in  Lon- 
don now  is  so  frightfully  mixed.  When  papa  and 
I  were  on  our  way  from  Paris  to  Liverpool,  in 
order  to  take  the  steamer  home,  we  stopped  a 
few  days  in  London,  and  went  to  a  ball  afc  the 
Countess  of  Goutyjoint's  great  mansion,  Portwine 
House.  We  met  literary  people  there,  and  jour- 
nalists, and  artists.  Such  a  rabble  —  it  was  per- 
fectly epatant  !  We  should  set  them  a  lesson  over 
here.  How  I  would  like  to  do  it  I  I  only  wish  I 
had  an  unlimited  opportunity ! ' 

" '  Heaven  help  us  all  if  you  had,  my  dear 
Georgine,'  I  said.  '  Pray,  tell  me,  do  you  ever 
expect  to  marry  ? ' 

"She  tossed  her  graceful  head.  Then  she 
appeared  to  reflect  for  a  moment.  'I  have  seen 
two  or  three  men  here  whom  I  might  marry,'  she 
replied.  '  I  shall  always  positively  insist,  however, 
on  three  attributes  in  my  husband,  —  immense 
wealth,  unexceptionable  birth,  and  exquisite  breed- 
ing.' 

" '  You  are  modest  in  your  demands,  truly ! ' 

" '  Not  at  all :  I  am  rational  —  nothing  more  or 
less.' 


804  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"That  summer  my  uncle  and  his  two  children 
went  to  live  on  a  fine  though  somewhat  retired 
estate  overlooking  the  Hudson.  Georgine's  winter 
gayeties  had  unsettled  her  health,  and  the  doctor 
had  forbidden  her  Newport,  at  which  decision  she 
grumbled  not  a  little.  Mr.  Cobb,  the  tutor  of  little 
Augustus,  went  with  the  family.  Perhaps  earlier 
in  my  tale  I  should  have  described  Mr.  Cobb.  He 
was  a  slim,  pale,  scholarly-looking  man,  neat  in  his 
dress,  slow  and  grave  in  his  movements,  and  given 
to  expansive  silences.  He  was  devoted  to  the  little 
heir  of  millions  under  his  charge.  Augustus  was 
a  rather  stupid  boy,  as  little  heirs  of  millions,  by 
some  curious  arrangement  of  fate,  are  often  apt  to 
be.  My  uncle  valued  Mr.  Cobb's  services,  and 
would  not,  as  he  once  told  me,  have  parted  with 
him  on  any  inducement.  Up  to  the  time  of  her 
departure  for  the  country,  the  haughty  Georgine 
had  apparently  noticed  Mr.  Cobb  but  in  one  way, 
—  by  visibly  shuddering  at  his  name. 

"  Soon  after  her  arrival  at  Riverview,  my  cousin 
was  taken  seriously  ill.  Almost  every  day  she  was 
seized  with  a  kind  of  nervous  fainting-fit,  and  my 
uncle  wrote  me  two  or  three  letters,  in  which  he 
expressed  severe  anxiety.  Once  he  wrote  words 
to  this  effect :  '  Our  life  here  is  very  quiet,  as  of 
course  you  will  surmise.  We  have  110  visitors, 
though  remember  there  is  always  a  room  and  a  bed 
for  you,  whenever  you  choose  to  seek  us.  Mr. 
Cobb  is  a  most  interesting  companion  in  this  soli- 
tude. He  not  only  has  a  mind  stored  with  facts, 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  805 

but  much  sly  humor,  and  clear,  sensible  views  on 
many  subjects.  What  a  reader  and  thinker  the 
man  has  been !  You  would  never  suspect  it  if  you 
were  not  intimately  thrown  with  him.  I  am  happy 
to  say  that  Georgine  has  entirely  conquered  the  old 
hostility  she  felt  for  him.  She  often  permits  him 
to  read  aloud  to  her  ;  and  yesterday  (the  weather 
being  particularly  cool  and  agreeable)  she  actually 
walked  about  the  lawn  with  him,  under  the  great 
pine-trees,  leaning,  for  support,  upon  his  arm? 

"When  I  reached  Riverview,  toward  the  latter 
portion  of  August,  Georgine's  health  had  greatly 
improved.  She  was  now  quite  strong  again,  and 
only  a  trifle  paler  than  when  I  had  seen  her  in  the 
heyday  of  her  fashionable  tyrannies  and  caprices. 
She  welcomed  me  very  heartily,  and  asked  fewer 
questions  than  I  had  expected  to  receive  about  the 
people  whom  I  had  recently  left  in  Newport.  I 
soon  became  aware  that  a  striking  change  had 
taken  place  ni  her  treatment  of  Mr.  Cobb.  That 
gentleman  was  often  present  in  our  little  group ; 
and  the  more  that  his  singularly  reserved  nature 
betrayed  itself  through  the  medium  of  conversa- 
tion, the  more  I  grew  convinced  of  my  uncle's  cor- 
rect estimate.  I  soon  learned  that  his  relatives 
were  nearly  all  living  in  Kansas  City,  but  that  he, 
through  peculiar  force  of  circumstance,  had  found 
himself  at  an  early  age  placed  under  the  care  of  a 
Swiss  uncle  on  his  mother's  side,  a  person  living  in 
Zurich.  Here,  at  the  University,  he  had  been 
educated. 


306  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

" '  You  now  call  yourself  no  longer  an  invalid,  I 
suppose,'  I  said  to  Georgine  a  day  or  two  after  my 
coming,  while  we  sat  together  on  the  breezy  piazza 
of  the  big  old-fashioned  homestead. 

" ' Oh,  no ! '  she  replied,  'I  am  in  excellent  health.' 

" '  You  will  be  all  ready  for  next  winter's  cam- 
paign ? ' 

"  She  did  not  make  me  any  answer.  I  watched 
her  half-drooped  face,  and  then  I  added : 

"'But  you  must  not  overdo  things  this  time. 
You  must  be  more  careful  than  you  were  last 
winter.' 

"She  raised  her  head  and  looked  at  me.  'I 
intend  to  be  much  more  careful,'  she  said.  Some- 
thing in  her  tones  really  startled  me.  I  could 
hardly  have  told,  just  tlien,  what  induced  me  to 
say : 

" 4  You  appear  to  have  struck  lip  quite  a  friend- 
ship for  Mr.  Cobb.' 

"  She  colored  vividly.  For  the  first  time  in  my 
experience  of  her,  I  saw  that  she  was  embarrassed. 
c  Yes,'  she  presently  returned, '  Mr.  Cobb  and  I  are 
excellent  friends.' 

"  '  How  monstrously  funny  ! '  I  observed. 

" 4  What  do  you  mean  ? '  she  asked  sharply 
enough.  Her  embarrassment  was  taking  the  easy 
refuge  of  annoyance.  '  How  is  it  so  funny,  if  you 
please  ? ' 

" c  Why,  your  noticing  him  at  all.  He  is  so  radi- 
cally different  from  your  ideal.' 

" c  I  never  told  you  I  had  an  ideal ! '  she  ex- 
claimed. 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  307 

"  I  quietly  quoted  her  own  words,  uttered  not 
so  many  weeks  before*  CI  shall  insist,  always 
positively  insist,  on  three  attributes,  —  immense 
wealth,  unexceptionable  birth,  and  exquisite  breed- 
ing.' 

"There  was  a  pause  again,  and  I  heard  the 
sound  of  her  unseen  foot  as  it  nervously  tapped 
the  piazza.  'Is  n't  it  true,'  I  said  at  length,  'that 
these  were  to  be  the  attributes  of  your  future  hus- 
band ?  Or  can  I  be  mistaken  ? ' 

"  She  rose  suddenly,  and  flashed  a  glance  at  me 
full  of  unutterable  things.  Then  she  burst  forth, 
'  Oh,  how  irritating  you  can  be,  Mark,  when  you 
choose  ! '  and  abruptly  darted  into  the  house. 

"  This  was  my  first  inkling  of  the  real  truth. 
But  the  rest  came  speedily.  Georgine  had  fallen 
in  love  with  Mr.  Cobb,  her  brother's  tutor,  and 
Mr.  Cobb  warmly  reciprocated  the  attachment.  I 
think  my  uncle  was  a  little  stunned  when  the  inev- 
itable news  broke  on  him;  I  am  sure  Jwas  consid- 
erably more  than  stunned.  If  tidings  from  over 
sea  had  reached  me  that  Queen  Victoria  was  going 
to  let  the  Princess  Beatrice  marry  a  Wall  Street 
broker,  I  don't  think  I  could  have  been  more 
astounded. 

"  My  uncle  demurred  a  little,  and  then  gave  his 
full  consent.  Mr.  Cobb  had  nothing  but  his  salary ; 
Georgine  would  probably  have  a  million,  at  the 
least.  The  whole  affair  set  society  agog  for  several 
weeks.  It  seemed  so  incredible  that  a  young 
woman  with  my  cousin's  ultra-aristocratic  views 


308  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

and  feelings  could  ever  have  stepped  down  from 
the  pedestal  she  had  made  of  them.  Our  beau 
monde  finds  much  difficulty  in  believing  that  pure 
love  can  ever  sway  its  disciples,  at  least  before 
wedlock.  But  that  it  should  have  worked  such 
marvels  in  two  short  months,  produced  universal 
bewilderment. 

"  There  was  a  wide  flutter  of  curiosity  to  see 
Mr.  Cobb  after  his  quiet  wedding  with  Georgine 
in  the  middle  of  the  following  autumn;  but  the 
married  pair  slipped  off  to  Europe,  and  are  travel- 
ling there  still.  All  this  is  not  so  very  long  ago. 
I  should  like  to  show  you  a  letter  which  I  received 
from  my  cousin  last  month.  It  is  uxorious  beyond 
description.  Erastus  is  the  only  man  in  the  world 
to  her.  I  forgot  to  tell  you,  by  the  way,  that  his 
name  is  not  merely  Cobb,  but  also  Erastus.  And 
so  ends  my  story.  I  promised  you  that  it  should 
have  a  picturesque  and  unexpected  ending." 

"  But  it  spoils  your  case  against  the  typical  New 
York  girl,"  said  my  friend,  laughing.  "  If  you  still 
declare  Miss  Georgine  to  have  been  one,  you  must 
admit  that  she  represents  a  class  whose  faults  lie 
very  much  on  the  surface." 

"  No,  I  won't  admit  that,"  I  argued.  "  Love  is 
a  marvellous  transformer.  It  can  make  the  leop- 
ard change  his  spots.  I  still  maintain  that  my 
cousin  was  a  typical  New  York  girl  (though  more 
attractive,  more  original,  and  more  outrageously 
snobbish,  perhaps,  than  most  of  those  who  resem- 
ble her)  before  slie  married  Mr.  Cobb  for  love," 


A  TYPICAL  NEW  YORK  GIRL.  309 

"  And  do  not  any  others  of  those  who  resemble 
her  marry  Mr.  Cobbs  for  love?"  inquired  my 
friend. 

I  shook  my  head  in  solemn  negative.  "  Those 
who  do,"  I  answered  dismally,  "are  as  rare  as 
white  crows." 


310  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XXIV. 

THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE. 

I  SUPPOSE  that  the  extreme  saliency  of  Mrs. 
Varick  Van  Tassell's  position  is  in  its  way  as  no- 
ticeable as  if  it  were  Trinity  Church  steeple  or  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  She  somehow  represents 
"position,"  and  nothing  else.  You  never  think  of 
her  as  hoping,  loving,  enduring,  and  suffering  like 
other  people.  You  always  summon  her  before  your 
inner  vision  as  in  the  act  of  entering  a  ball-room, 
or  sitting  down  amid  the  polite  preliminary  rustle 
of  a  dinner-party,  or  sipping  tea  from  diaphanous 
porcelain  at  an  afternoon  reception.  She  has  a 
very  large  house  "  on  the  avenue,"  where  she  has 
lived  for  many  years.  She  has  also  a  husband, 
whom  I  should  have  mentioned  before  the  house 
if  I  had  not  grown  somehow  to  place  him  after  it 
and  secondary  to  it ;  but  he  is  so  distinctly  an  ad- 
junct that  I  am  not  to  blame.  Mrs.  Van  Tassell 
has  her  mansion,  her  husband,  her  carriages,  her 
footmen,  et  cetera,  all  being  possessions  over  which 
she  presides  with  distinguished  grace.  Mr.  Varick 
Van  Tassell  adores  her ;  and  he  is  such  a  shadowy, 
incomplete,  indefinite  person,  that  I  am  sure  his 
most  ardent  adoration  could  not  have  occasioned 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  311 

her  a  moment's  inconvenience.  No  doubt  lie  has 
been  of  far  less  trouble  to  her  judicial,  superintend- 
ent mind  than  the  dynasty  of  butlers  who  have 
poured  wine  for  her  guests  through  thirty  years  of 
her  wedded  life.  She  did  not  at  all  benefit  herself 
by  her  marriage.  There  lies  the  chief  secret  of  her 
supreme  prestige  in  New  York;  everything  and 
everybody  has  been  tributary  to  her;  she  has 
never  bowed  to  circumstance,  but  has  always  had 
it  approach  her  with  a  kind  of  salaam,  as  though 
it  were  an  oriental  ambassador  and  bore  a  gift. 
It  is  true,  she  married  a  Van  Tassell ;  but,  when 
you  ask  who  she  had  been  before  this  marriage, 
you  immediately  learn  that  it  conferred  no  new 
dignity  of  a  merely  patrician  kind,  since  she  had 
been  a  Van  Tassell  herself ;  and,  more  than  this, 
she  was  quite  as  rich  a  Van  Tassell  as  her  hus- 
band. Nor  were  they  cousins ;  not  even  this  faint 
objection  to  their  union  had  existed.  On  the  con- 
trary, though  of  the  same  valued  Knickerbocker 
name,  they  were  but  distantly  connected. 

Ever  since  the  first  year  of  her  marriage,  Mrs. 
Van  Tassell  has  entertained  splendidly  and  pro- 
fusely ;  but  she  has  also  entertained  with  a  most 
rigid  carefulness.  She  never  discusses  the  ques- 
tion of  who  Smith  and  Jones  are,  but  she  permits 
you  to  form  your  own  conclusions  of  her  estimate 
in  this  respect  by  the  fact  of  whether  you  meet 
one,  neither,  or  both  of  them  in  her  drawing-rooms. 

"She  is  the  most  absolutely  swell  woman  in 
New  York,"  said  Mrs.  Douglass  Pranceley  of  her 


312  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

one  day.  "  I  admit  that.  With  her  slenderness, 
her  rose-leaf  complexion,  her  graceful  walk,  her 
repose,  her  little  silvery  laugh,  she  makes  an  aston- 
ishingly aristocratic  figure ;  but  I  detest  her.  She 
is  such  a  bigot  of  conservatism." 

Mrs.  Pranceley  is  not  at  all  conservative ;  and 
I  could  not  help  noticing  just  then,  as  she  sat  in 
her  own  cosey  chocolate-and-gold  reception-room 
at  my  side,  how  entirely  her  physical  traits  dif- 
fered from  all  those  which  she  had  recently  ac- 
corded to  Mrs.  Van  Tassell.  She  was  by  no  means 
slender,  but  almost  buxomly  plump  ;  she  had  not  a 
rose-leaf  complexion,  but  rather  a  peony-like  glow 
and  flush  ;  her  walk  was  in  no  sense  graceful ;  she 
completely  lacked  repose ;  and  as  for  her  laugh, 
the  genuine  heartiness  of  its  peals  alone  excused 
their  dauntless  discords. 

"Certainly,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  is  conservative,"  I 
assented.  "  She  could  not  be  a  marked  leader  in 
society  if  she  were  otherwise.  Wherever  the  pa- 
trician idea  flourishes,  there  you  find  the  motto, 
4  Let  things  alone.'  All  thrones  have  been  built 
upon  this  theory.  Dislodge  it,  and  they  begin  to 
totter." 

Mrs.  Pranceley  looked  at  me  fixedly  with  her 
sparkling  black  eyes.  "  I  think  it  simply  dread- 
ful," she  protested,  "  that  any  human  being  should 
express  so  much  mental  and  moral  stagnation  as 
that  woman  does,  in  our  awakened  nineteenth  cen- 
tury and  in  a  progressive  republican  land  like  this. 
The  other  day,  as  I  hear,  she  was  asked  to  become 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  313 

one  of  the  lady  patrons  of  the  new  Friday  evening 
dancing-class.     She  consented  provisionally." 

"  Provided  somebody  else  was  not  made  a  lady 
patron  ?  "  I  asked  with  a  smile. 

"  Yes ;  and  that  somebody  else  was  your  hum- 
ble servant,"  declared  Mrs.  Pranceley.  "  She 
could  n't  have  any  social  objections  against  me, 
you  know.  I  am  as  well  born  as  she  —  if  one 
cares  for  that  kind  of  humbug  here  ;  we  're  second 
or  third  cousins,  on  the  Fyshkille  side  of  her  fam- 
ily. No,  it  was  n't  that  :  she  objected  to  my 
advanced  opinions." 

"  Is  that  what  she  called  them  ?  " 

"  Yes.  She  did  n't  realize  the  sarcasm  in  that 
word  '  advanced,'  as  she  employed  it.  But  I  be- 
lieve the  principal  horror  that  she  laid  at  my  door 
was  a  sympathy  with  female  suffrage.  She  con- 
siders any  tendency  on  the  part  of  her  own  sex 
toward  its  emancipation  from  old  barbaric  preju- 
dices to  be  immodest  and  vulgar.  Well,  I  readily 
withdrew  my  name  from  the  list  of  patronesses. 
When  one  begins  actually  to  think  and  read  for 
one's  self,  it  's  remarkable  how  much  contempt 
one  gets  for  these  assemblages  of  mere  babbling, 
prattling  snobs.  But  I  mean  to  have  my  revenge 
on  Lydia  Van  Tassell." 

"  And,  pray,  what  is  your  revenge  to  be  ?  "  I 
asked. 

44 1  shall  send  her  a  polite  request  to  join  a 
certain  woman's  rights  society,  of  whicji  I  have 
]ately  become  a  member.  I  shall  write  her  a  really 


314  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

cousinly,  affectionate  note.  It  will  be  like  dyna- 
mite to  her,  I  verily  believe!  "  And  Mrs. Prance- 
ley  threw  back  her  head  with  a  gleeful  explosion 
of  laughter. 

"She  will  write  you  a  terrible,  scathing  rebuke, 
no  doubt,"  I  said. 

"  Bah !  "  cried  my  hostess.  "  She  has  n't  the 
brains  to  write  anything  terrible  or  scathing.  She 
will  probably  ignore  my  letter  altogether.  Silence 
will  be  her  best  refuge,  she  will  decide.  And 
she  will  be  right.  Silence  may  be  the  mantle  of 
wisdom,  but  it  may  also  be  the  safeguard  of  stu- 
pidity." 

Mrs.  Van  Tassell  adopted  the  course  of  silence, 
as  I  afterward  learned;  but  Mrs.  Pranceley  had 
made  a  mistake  in  her  kinswoman.  She  is  not 
devoid  of  brains.  I  have  reason  for  this  state- 
ment, as  I  hope  soon  to  reveal.  In  her  general 
social  attitude  there  is  an  extraordinary  taste  and 
discretion.  The  high  place  that  she  fills  is  filled 
with  a  striking  capability.  Her  consistency,  so  to 
speak,  is  perfect.  Her  individuality  as  a  woman 
who  represents  what  is  select,  exclusive,  palpably 
and  keenly  unplebeian,  shines  out  so  clear  that  you 
cannot  for  an  instant  err  or  doubt  concerning  its 
accuracy.  To  be  anything,  in  the  eyes  of  your 
fellows,  of  such  a  vividly  positive  nature  that  all 
misunderstanding  about  it  is  impossible,  means  to 
accomplish  what  is  difficult  and  rare.  Mrs.  Van 
Tassell,  to  my  thinking,  has  done  that.  She  has 
achieved  a  personality  so  distinct,  that  whether 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  315 

you  like  or  dislike,  approve  or  disapprove  her,  you 
can  never  fail  to  realize  with  exactitude  precisely 
what  she  is.  She  admits  of  no  misconception. 
She  has  the  most  sharp-lined  opinions,  and  she 
possesses  the  courage  of  them  in  the  most  clean- 
cut  way.  Call  her  a  power  for  bad,  if  you  will,  but 
she  is  at  least  that  unshrinkingly  and  incisively. 
She  believes  herself  to  be  right ;  and,  though  you 
laid  at  her  feet  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  Ind,  you 
could  not  convert  her  to  any  other  faith. 

It  is  not  so  much  that  she  does  not  think  or 
reason :  it  is  that  thought  and  reason  have  both 
stood  still  with  her  since  girlhood.  All  novelty 
of  view  regarding  the  great  problems  of  life  are  to 
her  abomination,  even  blasphemy.  She  is  a  ritu- 
alistic Episcopalian.  In  her  heart  she  holds  all 
people  who  are  not  ritualistic  Episcopalians  as 
pitiably  wrong.  She  learned  years  ago  to  worship 
caste,  pedigree,  position.  In  her  heart  she  holds 
that  all  people  who  omit  to  do  this  are  a  luckless 
lot.  She  regards  radical  inquiry  on  every  sub- 
ject, the  failure  to  accept  society  and  moral  law  as 
they  are  now  existent,  to  be  dangerous,  foolish,  in- 
sensate. All  people,  again,  who  are  not  with  her 
on  these  vital  questions,  she  holds  as  culpably 
against  her.  Everything  has  been  settled  in  the 
world,  and  she  placidly  lifts  the  standard  of 
conservatism,  signifying  that  this  is  a  granitic 
fact. 

Of  course,  I  knew  very  well  that  Mrs.  Pranceley 
had  offended  her  past  all  propitiation  by  that  re- 


816  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

vengeful  letter,  and  it  even  occurred  to  me  that 
her  wrath  might  be  visited  upon  myself  as  a 
widely  recognized  friend  of  the  rationalistic  little 
lady  who  had  roused  it.  Not  so,  however.  She 
gave  one  of  her  superb  state  balls  a  few  weeks 
later,  and  sent  me  the  usual  card.  She  had  been 
a  friend  of  my  mother  in  the  old  days ;  I  have 
even  heard  that  my  father  was  once  one  of  her 
gallant  admirers  when  she  was  Miss  and  not  Mrs. 
Van  Tassell.  For  whatever  reason,  she  has  always 
shown  me  marked  favor,  and  as  yet  there  was  no 
sign  of  its  diminution. 

Few  "  invitations  for  friends  "  were  ever  asked 
when  she  gave  her  entertainments.  The  guests 
who  came  were  only  too  glad  that  their  own 
names  had  not  been  dropped.  Mrs.  Pranceley 
(whose  letter  had  been  a  sort  of  lettre  de  cachet, 
and  who  received  no  cards  to  the  special  ball 
which  I  mention)  vented  her  fund  of  scorn  by  tell- 
ing me  a  story  which  she  assured  me  was  entirely 
authentic. 

"  Two  summers  ago,  my  dear  Mr.  Manhattan," 
she  said,  "  this  mighty  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  issued 
cards  for  a  ball  at  her  handsome  Newport  villa. 
No  less  a  magnate  than  Stuyvesant  Amsterdam 
himself  (you  of  course  know  whom  I  mean)  called 
upon  her  a  week  before  the  ball  occurred,  and  re- 
quested an  invitation  for  a  relative  of  his  wife,  a 
Miss  Pickerel,  who  had  lately  come  to  Newport. 
Now,  Stuyvesant  Amsterdam,  as  you  have  probably 
heard,  married  somebody  from  Elmira,  or  some- 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  317 

where  like  that,  who  had  no  money,  and  who,  as 
report  affirmed,  had  actually  occupied  the  degrad- 
ing position  of  a  school-teacher.  The  moment 
that  Mr.  Amsterdam  had  mentioned  the  name  of 
his  wife's  cousin,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  gently  frowned. 

"'What  a  really  dreadful  name  Pickerel  is!' 
she  murmured.  Then  she  looked  at  him  with  a 
smile  as  cold  as  snow,  and  added,  'I  —  I  rarely 
entertain  people  whom  I  do  not  'know ;  but  of 
course,  if  you  put  it  in  the  form  of  a  —  a  request^ 
Mr.  Amsterdam,  I  will  make  an  exception  to  my 
—  my  customary  rule.' 

" '  Madam  ! '  cried  Stuyvesant  Amsterdam,  with 
that  red  face  of  his  in  a  sudden  blaze  of  embar- 
rassment and  fury,  '  do  not  say  another  word. 
Miss  Pickerel  will  remain  away  from  your  ball  — • 
with  my  wife  and  myself ! ' 

"  And  did  they  remain  away  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  replied  Mrs.  Pranceley.  "  And  I 
have  no  doubt  that  Mrs.  Yan  Tassell  rather  con- 
gratulated herself  on  the  success  of  her  delicate 
insolence.  She  had  always  objected  to  Stuyve- 
sant's  marriage,  and  had  only  received  his  wife  (he 
is  a  relation  of  hers,  by  the  way)  under  protest. 
She  doubtless  knew  that  the  tale  of  her  rebuff 
would  be  circulated,  and  perhaps  felt  that  it  would 
act  in  the  future  as  a  preventive  against  similar 
atrocious  presumption.  And  it  did." 

A  little  while  after  the  ball  given  by  Mrs.  Yan 
Tassell,  I  was  surprised  to  receive  from  her  a  note 
requesting  that  I  would  dine  at  her  house  quite 


318  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

informally  on  a  near  evening.  It  was  then  the 
first  week  in  Lent.  I  accepted  her  invitation,  and 
found  my  hostess  the  only  lady  present.  Varick 
Van  Tassell  was  there,  with  his  vapory  whisker, 
his  watery  smile,  his  conventional,  neutral  insig- 
nificance. And  besides  himself  and  me,  there  were 
two  other  gentlemen.  I  had  never  met  either  oi 
them  before ;  they  were  a  Mr.  Potts  and  a  Mr. 
Dodson.  They  were  both  young,  smooth-shaven, 
inconspicuous,  and  rather  bashful.  They  had  very 
little  to  say  during  dinner ;  and  afterward,  when 
the  opportunity  came,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  briefly 
explained  to  me  that  they  were  two  young  theo- 
logical friends  of  hers,  who  were  studying  to  be 
clergymen  in  Brooklyn.  Her  husband's  relations, 
the  Brooklynheights,  had  "taken  them  up,"  and 
Mr.  Van  Tassell  was  to  accompany  them  on  a 

visit  that  same  evening  to  Bishop  L ("dear 

Bishop  L ,"  my  hostess  put  it)  for  the  purpose 

of  making  them  acquainted  with  that  famous 
divine. 

Meanwhile,  on  my  reception  of  this  information, 
the  two  students  had  departed  with  Mr.  Van 
Tassell.  I  now  understood  why  the  dinner  had 
been  given  at  the  unusually  early  hour  of  six 
o'clock.  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  and  I  had  left  the  din- 
ing-room, and  had  seated  ourselves  in  a  middle 
drawing-room  which  adjoined  it.  Everything  had 
been,  as  usual,  elegant,  refined,  faultless.  I  wanted 
to  smoke,  as  I  always  do  want  after  dinner,  but 
there  seemed  no  possible  chance  for  it.  Notwith- 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  319 

standing  the  perfection  of  our  repast,  it  had  been 
brief.  The  hour  was  now  scarcely  later  than  seven. 

"We  have  had  a  real  Lenten  dinner,  have  we 
not  ?  "  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  presently  said.  "  I  mean, 
it  has  been  so  short."  She  now  looked  at  me  with 
soft  earnestness.  "But  I  fear  you  do  not  think 
much  about  Lent,"  she  added. 

I  had  somehow  felt  that  something  of  this  sort 
was  in  the  air.  It  is  possible  that  I  furtively  bit 
my  lip  as  I  answered : 

"  No,  frankly,  I  am  not  pious." 

"She  drew  a  long,  deep  sigh.  She  was  still 
earnestly  regarding  me.  "  Your  mother,  Mark," 
she  said,  "  always  paid  heed  to  Lent." 

I  slowly  inclined  my  head.  I  could  have  said 
much ;  I  chose  to  remain  silent. 

Mrs.  Van  Tassell  had  been  drawing  on  her 
gloves.  She  always  wore  them  when  in  her  salon. 
She  now  buttoned  the  last  of  their  many  buttons, 
and  once  more  lifted  her  face  to  mine. 

"Mark,"  she  said  very  gently,  "I  hear  bad 
things  about  you." 

I  -met  her  look  then,  and  met  it  full.  "Pray, 
what  do  you  hear  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  folded  both  her  slim,  ladylike  hands  in  her 
lap.  She  leaned  her  pink,  fade,  high-bred  face 
toward  mine.  "  I  hear,"  she  said,  "  that  you  are 
letting  yourself  drift." 

"  Letting  myself  drift !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Well, 
T  'm  sorry  if  you  Ve  heard  that,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell. 
I  want  to  sail,  not  drift.  I  want  to  move  capably, 
not  float," 


320  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

She  slightly  drooped  her  head,  and  shook  it  as 
she  did  so.  "  Ah !  "  she  replied,  "  to  move  may 
mean  to  move  either  forward  or  backward." 

"  And  do  you  prefer  to  be  always  stationary  ?  " 

Her  eyes,  which  were  gray  and  tender,  and  had 
been  not  the  least  of  her  youthful  charms,  now 
took  a  light  into  their  depths  almost  as  keen  as 
that  of  the  superb  diamond  cross  lying  brilliant 
among  the  laces  on  her  bosom. 

"  I  prefer  an  anchorage,"  she  said. 

I  now  began  to  have  the  feelings  of  a  shy  crea- 
ture that  has  been  deftly  entrapped.  I  began  to 
perceive  with  great  clearness  why  I  had  been 
asked  to  dinner.  The  whole  affair  had  been  neatly 
arranged  beforehand.  Varick  Van  Tassell  was  to 
disappear  after  dinner,  with  the  two  embryo  cler- 
gymen, and  I  was  to  be  left  alone,  at  the  mercy 
of  his  wife,  who  desired  to  preach-  me  a  sermon. 
Somehow,  while  I  quickly  reflected  that  all  this 
was  quite  true,  I  felt  no  rising  choler.  I  was 
determined  to  be  Ion  enfant.  I  had  no  wish  either 
to  offend  or  become  offended.  What,  after  all,  was 
Mrs.  Van  Tassell's  conservatism  to  me  ?  I  could 
not  repose  much  confidence  in  my  own  liberalism,, 
if  I  were  to  treat  seriously  any  rebuke  she  might 
administer. 

"  I  suppose  you  mean,"  I  said,  "  that  one  should 
take  the  world  as  it  is.  But  I  am  not  of  that 
kind.  I  believe  that  we  are  still,  in  a  hundred 
matters,  merely  upon  the  threshold  of  progress. 
As  for  your  own  sex,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  "  — 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  321 

She  had  straightened  herself  in  her  chair,  and 
she  now  stretched  forth  one  hand,  making  with  it 
a  gesture  that  I  must  have  been  rude  to  disregard. 

"  Don't ! "  she  almost  gasped.  "  I  can't  bear 
that!  I  think  that  I  could  nerve  myself  to  hear 
anything  but  that !  Oh,  it  is  so  brazen  for  women 
to  dream  of  having  the  same  rights  as  men!  I 
have  all  the  rights  that  I  want.  I  have  always 
had." 

"Ah!  you  forget,"  I  could  not  help  saying  at 
this  preposterous  point  in  her  remarks,  "that  many 
millions  of  women  exist  on  the  globe  whose  fate  is 
quite  different  from  your  own." 

She  lifted  her  head  somewhat  haughtily,  com- 
pressing her  lips.  "  I  see  —  you  wish  to  argue 
with  me.  But  I  cannot  endure  that  on  such  a 
subject  I  should  be  led  into  an  argument." 

I  smiled  as  I  answered  her.  I  felt  my  good 
nature  to  be  impregnable  against  javelins  like  these. 

"  You  mistake,"  I  said ;  "  I  do  not  at  all  wish  to 
argue.  And  you  must  pardon  me  when  I  add  that 
you  are  too  uninformed  on  this  most  important 
question  to  make  argument  possible  between  us." 

"  Uninformed  I "  she  exclaimed  with  a  smile  of 
surpassing  pity.  "  O  Mark !  if  your  poor  mother 
knew  that  you  valued  information  of  this  misera- 
ble sort!  And  in  what  does  it  consist,  such  in- 
formation? In  a  knowledge  of  nearly  all  that 
is  infamous  and  degrading  among  womankind. 
Women's  rights,  —  what  are  they  ?  The  rights 
to  unsex  themselves  —  to  trample  marriage  under 


322  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

their  feet  —  to  become  free-lovers  —  to  dress  like 
men  —  to  .  .  .  Ah!"  she  suddenly  broke  off,  ris- 
ing, "  it  is  too  horrible !  There  has  never  been  a 
serious  view  of  this  shameful  matter  taken  by  any 
guest  of  mine  before,  and  I  cannot  tolerate  that 
even  you,  the  son  of  my  old  friend,  should  begin." 

I  had  also  risen.  I  was  still  not  in  the  least 
angry.  The  whole  exhibition  of  ignorance  and 
bigotry  was  too  sad  for  that. 

"Pray,  do  not  for  an  instant  imagine,"  I  said 
very  calmly  and  firmly,  "that  you  are  taking  a 
serious  view  of  the  rights  of  women  by  such 
wholesale  misrepresentation  as  that  which  you 
have  just  employed." 

"  Misrepresentation !  "  she  repeated  offendedly, 
and  with  the  air  of  a  person  whom  there  is  peril 
in  offending. 

"The  grossest  misrepresentation,"  I  said  with 
much  emphasis.  "  I  don't  believe  you  are  aware 
of  it,  but  you  have  insulted  a  great  many  women 
who  are  as  pure  and  honest  as  yourself,  by  the 
reckless  language  you  have  just  used." 

She  turned  pale.  A  great  sorrow  seemed  to  fill 
her  look,  but  there  was  no  anger  there.  She 
clasped  both  hands  together  as  she  now  fixed  her 
eyes  searchingly  on  my  face.  I  have  often  remem- 
bered her  as  she  stood  thus,  with  her  costly  dinner- 
robe  flowing  about  her  fragile  and  wholly  elegant 
figure.  As  a  type,  she  had  such  imaginative  worth : 
the  romance  of  the  old  yrandes  dames  seemed 
clinging  to  her  as  I  watched  her  thus  confront  me 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.          328 

there  in  her  splendid  drawing-room.  "Is  this 
America  ?  "  I  almost  asked  of  my  own  thoughts. 
If  all  history  loves  to  repeat  itself,  does  not  the 
mere  individual,  who  is  like  a  line  in  one  of  her 
mighty  volumes,  undergo  perpetual  reduplication 
as  well? 

"I  —  I  am  so  sorry  !  "  she  said  to  me.  " I  have 
always  liked  you,  Mark,  and  never  wanted  to  be 
anything  except  your  good  friend.  When  I  first 
heard  that  you  had  taken  to  reading  books  by  that 
arch-fiend,  Herbert  Spencer  (yes,  I  can  call  him 
nothing  but  an  arch-fiend),  and  that  you  were 
becoming  the  unhappy  and  desperate  being  called 
a  Free-thinker,  I — I  longed  to  try  and  help  you. 
But  now  "  — 

"  But  now,"  I  broke  in  as  her  grave  voice 
paused  for  a  moment,  "  I  dare  say  that  you  have 
found  me  past  help."  I  was  again  smiling  as  I 
thus  spoke. 

"Past  help!"  she  repeated.  "Don't  tell  me 
that !  It  is  so  awful !  And  you  smile  as  if  you 
despised  anything  like  counsel  or  advice."  She 
paused  once  more,  and  her  face  grew  very  solemn. 
"  Mark,"  she  presently  continued,  "  are  you  — 
answer  me  truthfully  and  candidly  —  a  Free- 
thinker?" 

"  On  all  subjects,"  I  at  once  answered,  "  yes, 
truthfully  and  candidly,  yes." 

She  bowed  her  head  for  an  instant,  and  visibly 
shuddered.  When  she  raised  it,  I  saw  that  her 
look  was  even  more  sorrowful  than  it  had  been. 


824  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"You  have  just  said  something,"  I  continued, 
"  about  a  man  who  is  the  supreme  master  of  mod- 
ern English  thought,  that,  if  I  were  inclined  to 
be  discourteous,  I  should  call  immeasurably  silly. 
You  worship  a  god  whose  name  is  Conventionality ; 
and,  in  order  properly  to  serve  him,  you  blind  your 
eyes  and  deafen  your  ears.  You  have  made  the 
attempt  to  lecture  me,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell,  from  your 
stand-point  of  unflinching  conservatism ;  but,  with 
the  greatest  respect  and  the  most  thorough  polite- 
ness, I  must  decline  to  be  lectured.  I  am  far  from 
denying  my  own  faults.  They  may  be  legion. 
Some  one,  who  had  presumption  enough,  might 
mention  a  few  of  your  faults  in  your  presence. 
He  might  say  (you  will  pardon  me,  since  I  speak 
only  of  remote  possibilities)  that  your  assumption 
of  caste  and  superiority  over  your  fellow-creatures 
is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  all  high  religious  teach- 
ing. He  might  say  that  even  in  being  as  tena- 
ciously conservative  as  you  are,  you  failed  to 
fulfil  such  obligations  as  your  defined  conservative 
attitude  should  entail.  He  might  be  presumptuous 
to  the  extent  of  stating  that  you  wholly  lacked,  as 
a  self-declared  Christian,  the  extremely  Christian 
virtue  of  humility.  He  might  (pray,  remember 
that  I  still  deal  with  possibilities  alone)  assert 
that  you  assumed  an  immense  im-Christian  superi- 
ority over  your  fellows.  He  might "  — 

I  ceased ;  for  the  suave,  stately,  decorous  butler 
had  just  entered  the  apartment. 

"The  carriage,  Thomas?"  said  Mrs.  Van  Tas- 
sell,  looking  at  her  servant. 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  CONSERVATIVE.  325 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Van  Tassell,"  said  Thomas,  with  a 
bow  that  can  be  learned  only  in  the  society  of  the 
great. 

"Very  well."  The  voice  of  my  hostess  was 
husky  as  she  dismissed  her  servant.  "  I  am  going 
to  evening  service,"  she  continued,  addressing  my- 
self; and  her  voice  was  still  husky.  "It  is  Lent, 
you  know.  I  always  go  in  Lent  to  evening  service. 
You  will  excuse  me  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  I  responded,  bowing.  My  bow,  I 
am  sure,  had  not  half  the  majesty  and  grace  of 
Thomas's. 

She  went  to  evening  service,  and  I  went  — 
away. 

I  wonder  if  Mrs.  Van  Tassell  will  ever  invite  me 
to  her  house  again.  I  should  say  that  she  will  not. 
I  had  trodden  somewhat  bruskly  upon  the  toes 
of  conservatism.  Why  should  I  expect  further 
hospitality  from  the  lady  who  thinks  a  rascal  in 
the  New  York  slums  better  entitled  to  a  vote 
regarding  the  government  of  her  country  than  she 
herself,  or  who  has  denounced  Mr.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer (that  most  wonderful  of  philanthropists)  as  an 
arch-fiend  ? 

Well,  it  is  surprising  what  torments  the  human 
organization  can  endure  at  a  pinch.  I  have  my 
private  impression,  that,  if  Mrs.  Varick  Van  Tas- 
sell never  again  invites  me  to  her  handsome  house 
in  Fifth  Avenue,  I  shall  still  live. 


32G  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XXV. 

THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB. 

I  HAD  for  several  years  accepted  as  a  clear 
fact  the  excessive  cleverness  of  Mr.  Peabody 
Crisp,  the  well-known  lawyer.  Doubt  on  this 
subject  is  held  by  perhaps  two  hundred  of  the 
gentleman's  leal  worshippers  as  an  impossibility. 
I  know  of  few  men  in  New  York  more  socially 
sought  after  than  Mr.  Peabody  Crisp.  I  think  it 
probable  that  he  could  dine  out  every  day  in  the 
year  if  so  disposed.  I  am  sure  that  his  company 
at  dinner  is  solicited  to  an  enormous  extent.  He 
represents,  as  regards  popularity  and  influence, 
the  almost  ideally  successful  man.  He  is  con- 
sidered the  best  of  good  company,  the  king  of 
good  fellows.  When  he  begins  to  speak,  there  is 
always  a  respectful  and  interested  silence.  His 
reputation  for  wit  and  brilliancy  amounts  to  a 
positive  fame.  Nor  does  it  stop  there;  he  is 
esteemed  a  person  of  sound  and  solid  views  on  all 
the  larger  and  more  important  questions.  He  is 
known  to  be  extremely  orthodox  and  conservative. 
His  detestation  of  liberal  principles  in  politics  and 
religion  has  become  proverbial.  He  is  thought 
especially  noteworthy  as  an  after-dinner  speaker. 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  327 

When  his  name  is  pronounced  by  the  master  of 
ceremonies,  you  are  certain  to  hear  a  round  of 
rapturous  applause.  He  rises  with  drooped  eyes, 
stroking  a  smooth-shaven  chin.  He  begins  to 
speak  in  a  very  nasal,  loitering  voice.  He  is 
exceedingly  tall,  of  lank  and  ungainly  figure,  and 
he  possesses  a  pair  of  immense,  salient-knuckled 
hands,  which  he  waves  and  flourishes  more  and 
more  during  the  heat  of  his  oratory.  Usually,  at 
the  completion  of  his  first  sentence,  he  is  greeted 
by  a  roar  of  laughter.  The  roars  continue,  at 
intervals  of  brief  duration,  until  he  has  seated 
himself.  Nobody  else  ever  receives  the  same 
warm  welcome,  the  same  loving  appreciation.  I 
believe  that  he  will  pass  to  his  grave  with  a  cohort 
of  the  most  devout  and  admiring  mourners.  Eu- 
logy will  exhaust  itself  in  recording  his  marvellous 
qualities  of  companionship,  geniality,  and  secure 
intellectual  merit. 

And  yet  I  am  convinced  that  Mr.  Peabody  Crisp 
is  a  complete  and  absolute  sham. 

The  conviction  flashed  upon  me  one  evening 
when  I  heard  him  deliver  an  after-dinner  speech. 
The  speech  was  thought  a  striking  triumph.  It 
touched  upon  several  "  questions  of  the  day,"  and 
what  it  touched  it  was  evidently  believed  to  adorn. 
Just  as  the  applause  which  had  followed  his  final 
sentence  was  subsiding,  I  turned  to  the  gentleman 
next  me. 

"  I  have  never  heard  Mr.  Crisp  speak  before,"  I 
said. 


328  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

The  gentleman's  face  was  wreathed  in  smiles. 
uls  it  possible?"  he  murmured.  "Well,  you  are 
unfortunate ! " 

"  I  shook  my  head  with  a  good  deal  of  decision. 
"  I  can't  agree  with  you,"  was  my  reply.  "  That 
is,  provided  Mr.  Crisp  never  acquits  himself  more 
brilliantly  than  he  has  done  to-night." 

"  Brilliantly !  "  echoed  my  companion,  who  was 
one  of  the  recent  orator's  most  ardent  devotees. 
"  Well,  sir,  I  should  like  to  know  what  real  bril- 
liancy es,  if  we  did  not  meet  with  it  a  few  minutes 
ago." 

"  I  think  we  did  not  meet  with  it,"  I  returned. 
I  secretly  felt  as  if  I  had  had  my  pockets  picked 
of  considerable  small  change.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  this  Mr.  Peabody  Crisp  had  no  right  to  inflict 
on  more  than  a  dozen  pre-occupied  digestions  his 
truly  aggravating  platitudes.  And  I  now  went 
011  to  say,  with  the  unhesitating  boldness  which  I 
always  employ  when  I  feel  myself  justified  by  the 
occasion : 

"  I  call  everything  which  I  heard  from  Mr.  Pea- 
body  Crisp's  lips  the  flimsiest  sort  of  'gallery  talk.' 
I  believe  that  I  know  '  gallery  talk '  when  I  hear 
it.  We  Americans  ought.  We  manage  to  fall  in 
with  so  much  of  it." 

My  neighbor  visibly  bristled.  I  confess  that  I 
enjoyed  his  dismay  and  disgust.  If  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  world  especially  annoying  to  me,  it  is 
genuflection  before  an  unworthy  ideal.  I  have  a 
good  deal  of  honest  sympathy  with  hero-worship, 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  329 

notwithstanding  many  of  its  ludicrous  and  even 
grotesque  phases;  but,  when  I  suspect  the  trib- 
ute of  devotion  to  be  paid  where  it  is  ill  deserved, 
I  am  prepared  for  not  a  little  tough  belligerence. 

"  Oh,  I  see !  Mr.  Manhattan,"  came  the  rather 
tart  response :  "  you  disagree  with  the  ideas  ex- 
pressed by  Mr.  Crisp." 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said.  "I  perceived  no  ideas 
with  which  I  could  disagree." 

Somehow  this  little  assertive  outburst  on  my 
part  got  to  be  rather  widely  known.  Several  peo- 
ple mentioned  to  me  that  they  had  heard  of  my 
strong  aversion  for  Mr.  Peabody  Crisp. 

"  It  is  not  a  strong  aversion,"  I  usually  said. 
"  It  is  a  sense  of  the  man  being  a  complete  intel- 
lectual fraud.  His  popularity  I  admit ;  but  that, 
with  me,  is  no  argument.  I  have  seen  a  good 
many  popular  people  and  popular  things  unde- 
serving of  notice.  I  shall  never  forget  the  speech 

which  I  heard  him  make  at  G 's  large  dinner. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  nearly  everybody  present 
thought  that  speech  a  brilliant  one.  I  am  sure 
that  it  was  held  to  be  representative  of  what  the 
gentleman  usually  does  in  that  way.  Am  I  wrong 
there?" 

"  Well,  no,"  usually  came  the  answer.  "  It  was 
certainly  very  funny,  besides  being  excessively 
clever." 

"  Its  fun,"  I  replied,  "  was  a  matter  of  taste.  I 
think  you  get  the  same  kind  of  fun  in  the  comic 
column  of  most  vulgar  newspapers.  Its  wisdom 


330  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

I  could  not  at  all  see.  Shallow  epigram  is  not 
wisdom." 

The  worshippers  of  Mr.  Crisp  naturally  did  not 
like  this  sort  of  plain  statement.  I  had  already 
met  their  idol ;  and  one  day  I  was  invited  to  dine 
in  his  society  by  a  Mr.  Gentian,  who  ranked 
among  his  devoutest  admirers.  Unsuspectingly  I 
accepted,  and  it  was  not  until  I  found  myself  in 
the  drawing-room  of  my  host  that  I  began  to  feel 
myself  the  object  of  a  conspiracy.  Perhaps  this  is 
too  strong  a  word.  But  as  Mr.  Crisp  shook  hands 
with  me,  I  fancied  that  there  was  a  kind  of  metallic 
challenge  in  his  full,  acute,  prominent  eye,  and  a 
satiric  smile  about  his  thin,  clean-shorn  lips.  As 
I  looked  round  the  apartment,  too,  I  saw  eight 
guests  of  known  allegiance  to  Mr.  Crisp.  Mr. 
Gentian's  allegiance  was  something  that  belonged 
to  municipal  history.  Mr.  Gentian  held  number- 
less bonds  in  a  noted  city  railway.  Between  him- 
self and  the  railway  company  had  arisen,  several 
years  ago,  a  sharp  quarrel.  Serious  charges  of 
something  more  than  merely  high-handed  monop- 
oly had  been  brought  against  Mr.  Gentian,  the 
renowned  Wall  Street  grandee.  Mr.  Peabody 
Crisp  had  defended  him  in  court,  and  won  his 
case. 

Mr.  Gentian  was  a  mild-mannered  little  man, 
with  a  superabundant  forehead  very  bald  indeed, 
and  a  tapering  flaxen  goatee.  We  had  nothing  in 
common  together ;  I  detest  "  stock  'H;alk,  and  I 
think  he  knew  it ;  I  rarely  did  more  than  coolly 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  831 

nod  to  him  in  the  club.  I  had  thought  it  some- 
what odd  that  he  should  ask  me  to  dinner ;  but 
then,  a  good  many  people  do  ask  me  to  dinner  for 
no  definite  reason. 

It  was  a  remarkably  fine  dinner.  The  wine 
sparkled,  and  the  choice  viands  diffused  rich 
aromas.  I  soon  observed  that  I  sat  on  Mr.  Gen- 
tian's left,  and  that  Mr.  Peabody  Crisp  sat  on  his 
right.  I  also  made  another  observation  before  the 

o 

repast  had  reached  its  third  course.  Whenever  I 
spoke,  the  eight  sworn  adherents  of  Mr.  Crisp 
gave  marked  evidence  of  attention.  Mr.  Crisp  also 
gave  such  evidence.  At  first  I  doubted  this  fact ; 
I  fancied  it  a  mere  hallucination.  But  presently 
I  became  convinced  that  it  was  nothing  of  the 
sort.  Mr.  Crisp,  so  to  speak,  had  been  set  upon 
me.  I  was  to  be  conversationally  pulverized.  I 
had  not  a  supporter  present.  Mr.  Gentian,  silent 
as  usual  (I  never  heard  him  speak  more  than 
three  consecutive  sentences),  wore  a  steadfast  fac- 
titious smile.  If  the  smile  altered  during  dinner, 
I  am  not  aware  of  such  alteration.  As  a  tribute 
to  his  decent  hospitality,  I  record  this  neutral  trait 
of  deportment. 

When  I  had  positively  decided  that  a  trap  had 
been  laid  for  me,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  state 
that  my  indignation  was  intense.  To  be  pitted  in 
this  way  against  a  man  whom  I  held  in  thorough 
disesteem  struck  me  as  keenly  odious.  But  I 
knew  that  indignation  could  now  profit  me  noth- 
ing, and  I  rapidly  grew  calm  as  I  made  this  re- 


332  SOCIAL  SILIIQIT.TTLX. 

flection.  My  calmness,  too,  was  that  of  wary 
antagonism.  I  found  myself  suddenly  at  bay.  I 
had  openly  presumed  to  state  my  opinions  of  Mr. 
Crisp,  and  I  was  now  called  upon  to  publicly  de- 
fend them.  If  there  had  been  any  manifest  dis- 
courtesy shown  by  my  companions,  I  should  have 
simply  guarded  myself  with  a  haughty  silence,  and 
taken  my  leave  as  soon  as  occasion  would  permit. 
But  the  hostility  was  somehow  in  the  air ;  I  could 
feel  it ;  I  could  breathe  it  in ;  it  was  intangible 
and  yet  apparent.  And  for  this  reason,  no  doubt, 
I  was  put  on  my  mettle  ;  I  was  covertly  stung 
into  an  attitude  of  careful,  vigilant  defence. 

The  first  direct  gun,  as  it  were,  was  fired  by  Mr. 
Crisp. 

"  My  dear  Gentian,"  he  said  with  a  sidelong 
look  at  myself,  while  everybody  listened,  "have 
you  read  that  delightful  new  book  by  the  Rev. 
Boanerges  Brittle,  entitled  'Scientific  Monkey- 
Making  '  ?  It  is  a  wonderful  work." 

"  No,  I  have  not  seen  it,"  said  our  host  demurely 
and  sedately. 

"It  contains  much  splendid  reasoning,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  Crisp.  "  It  completely  destroys  that 
humbug,  Darwin." 

I  bit  my  lip.  If  there  is  any  intellect  which  I 
thoroughly  respect,  it  is  that  of  the  great  dead 
English  thinker  just  named.  I  looked  straight  at 
Mr.  Crisp  and  smiled  as  amiably  as  I  could  while 
I  asked : 

"  Why  do  you  call  Darwin  a  humbug  ?  " 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  333 

Mr.  Crisp  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  surveyed 
me.  He  cleared  his  throat  very  audibly  indeed. 
"  Why  do  I  call  Darwin  a  humbug  ?  "  he  repeated. 
He  twitched  one  side  of  his  face  in  a  manner 
which  everybody  must  have  thought  comic,  for  a 
universal  laugh  followed  the  grimace.  I  waited 
till  the  laugh  had  ended ;  then  I  shot  in  these 
words,  without  a  shadow  of  revealed  annoyance, 
but  with  about  as  much  hard,  sharp  force  as  I  have 
ever  employed : 

"  Pardon  me,  but  that  was  my  question,  and  I 
did  not  know  that  your  hearing  was  defective." 

"  Oh  ! "  said  my  combatant,  stroking  his  clean, 
bluish  chin  with  one  large  hand.  "  It  is  n't  defec- 
tive. No,  not  at  all.  I  've  got  about  a  hundred 
answers  to  that  question  of  yours,  and  I  was  paus- 
ing to  think  of  the  weakest  one.  It  '11  be  quite 
enough  of  a  crusher,  I  can  tell  you  that." 

Another  loyal  and  hearty  laugh  instantly  fol- 
lowed from  the  assemblage.  But  here  Mr.  Crisp 
waved  his  right  hand,  bidding  the  laugh  subside. 
His  face  had  become  very  serious.  He  was  evi- 
dently meditating  upon  his  "  crusher."  He  had  a 
voice  of  great  bass  volume  and  compass  when  he 
chose  to  call  forth  its  deeper  qualities,  and  he 
chose  to  call  them  forth  now. 

"  I  guess  I  'm  a  good  deal  of  a  plainer  man  than 
you  are,  Mr.  Manhattan.  I  dare  say  I  have  n't 
got  much  modern  brains  or  much  modern  educa- 
tion ;  but  I  think  the  most  honest  way  of  telling 
you  why  I  consider  Darwin  a  humbug  is  to  state 


334  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

that  lie  lias  presumed  to  fling  insults  at  the  Al- 
mighty." 

It  is  my  impression  that  I  slightly  curled  my  lip 
here.  I  was  very  cool,  very  self-possessed.  And 
I  said,  without  raising  my  voice  above  the  ordinary 
tone : 

"  Your  brains,  and  education  are  too  widely 
conceded  for  your  own  disparagement  of  either  to 
affect  so  secure  a  reputation  regarding  both.  At 
the  same  time,  if  your  statement  that  Darwin  has 
ever  insulted  the  Almighty  is  your  weakest  answer 
to  my  question,  I  must  beg  that  you  will  supply 
me  with  a  stronger  one  —  among  the  hundred 
others  which  you  profess  to  have  at  your  com- 
mand." 

"Indeed!     And  why?" 

"  Why  ?  "  I  gently  repeated.  "  Because  I  abso- 
lutely deny  that  the  great  philosopher  mentioned 
has  in  any  printed  page  of  his  writings  acquitted 
himself  with  the  silliness  you  record  against  him." 

A  dead  silence  ensued.  The  favorite  had  waved 
his  hand.  There  was  to  be  no  more  laughter.  My 
extinction,  my  annihilation,  was  to  be  accomplished 
in  a  wholly  grave  and  sober  way. 

"Just  wait,"  I  heard  one  adherent  whisper  to 
another.  "  He  '11  let  himself  loose  in  a  minute." 

He  did  "  let  himself  loose  "  promptly,  and  to 
this  effect,  leaning  still  farther  back  in  his  chair, 
and  frowning  upon  me  with  a  mighty  grandeur: 

"  Oh,  so  you  think  it  silliness,  do  you,  my  friend? 
Well,  now,  there  you  and  I  agree,  /think  it  sil- 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  335 

liness,  but  I  think  it  more  !  Yes,  sir,  I  think  it 
blasphemy,  when  any  man  tries  to  assert  that  Adam 
and  Eve  were  a  pair  of  male  and  female  gorillas*" 

His  frown  suddenly  changed  to  a  smile.  He 
looked  about  among  his  fraternity.  This  was  their 
permission  to  laugh.  And  they  did  laugh  uproari- 
ously. I  laughed  too,  but  with  a  scorn  perhaps  as 
weary  as  it  was  bitter.  And  the  instant  that  the 
silence  allowed  me,  I  said : 

"  Like  many  men  of  extraordinary  wit,  I  fear 
you  have  let  this  gift  lead  you  into  a  temptation." 

He  was  very  nonchalant  now.  He  had  appar- 
ently conquered.  He  could  afford  to  be  humor- 
ously interrogative. 

"  Ah  ?    Indeed  ?     What  temptation  ?  " 

"That,"  I  replied,  "of  putting  a  mask  upon 
ignorance." 

"  Ignorance  ?  Oho  !  "  He  laughed  in  his  na- 
sally genial  way.  "A  minute  ago  I  was  silly. 
Now  I  'm  ignorant,  am  I  ?  " 

I  took  up  an  olive  and  bit  it,  shrugging  my 
shoulders  the  least  in  the  world.  I  am  sure  that  I 
have  never  been  more  placidly  controlled  of  de- 
meanor than  when  I  answered : 

"I  did  not  call  you  silly.  The  accusation  is 
quite  one  of  your  own  invention.  But  I  must 
plead  guilty  to  having  called  you  ignorant.  I  do 
not  believe  you  have  ever  read  a  single  work  of 
the  scholar  whom  you  denounce.  I  believe  you 
have  got  all  your  knowledge  of  him  at  second- 
hand from  the  blatant  and  fanatical  Mr.  Boanerges 


336  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

Brittle,  whose  feverish  tirades  you  so  admire.  If 
you  can  mention  to  me  the  titles  of  four  separate 
works  by  the  late  Mr.  Darwin,  —  a  writer  hon- 
ored throughout  Europe  for  his  magnificent  attain- 
ments, —  I  will  pay  you  public  apology  here  at 
this  table  for  having  called  you  ignorant." 

He  noticeably  winced  now.  He  straightened 
himself  in  his  chair.  He  almost  glowered  upon 
me  as  he  fumed : 

"Young  man,  you  are  strangely  personal !  " 

"  Of  course  I  am  personal,"  I  replied.  "  In  the 
sense  of  accusing  you  of  not  knowing  anything  at 
all  about  a  very  wonderful  scientist — whom  you 
assail  with  much  abuse  —  I  ivish  to  be  personal." 

He  waved  his  hands  again.  His  large  lips  had 
grown  pale.  It  was  plain  that  he  was  very  angry. 
" Oh,  come  !  "  he  almost  stammered.  "I  —  I  will 
oblige  you  a  second  time,  sir,  since  you  are  so 
polite  about  it.  I  '11  —  I  '11  mask  my  ignorance 
once  again." 

"  That  is  not  fair,"  I  persisted.  "  You  are  bound 
to  answer  my  question." 

"  Oh,  I  'm  bound,  am  I?  "  he  muttered.  "  And 
who  or  what  binds  me,  if  you  please?  " 

"  Consistency,  fairness,  justice,  all  bind  you,"  I 
said.  "Come,  sir, 'if  you  please.  I  want  those 
four  titles.  Or  you  need  not  even  give  so  much. 
You  can  indicate  —  with  your  natural  fluency  and 
facility  of  diction  —  what  the  works  are,  provided 
your  memory  temporarily  fails  you  regarding  their 
exact  names." 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  IS  GLIB.  337 

My  glance  was  riveted  upon  his  own  as  I  spoke. 
I  saw  it  shift.  I  was  certain  that  the  fact  of  his 
confusion  and  embarrassment  had  transpired 
among  his  friends,  and  that  they  were  themselves 
exchanging. surprised  looks. 

"I  —  I  deny  your  right  to  make  this  demand," 
he  soon  declared  with  uncharacteristic  bustle  and 
flurry  of  manner. 

"You  never  read  a  line  of  Darwin's  noble  writ- 
ings in  your  life,"  I  retorted.  "  Deny  that  if  you 
can." 

"I'll  not  even  deny  it,"  he  said  with  rather 
lame  disdain.  "  I  '11  mask  my  ignorance,  as  I  told 
you,  young  man." 

"  You  can't  do  so  with  bravado,"  I  returned 
quietly. 

My  host's  hand  grasped  my  arm  restrainingly 
here,  but  I  went  on  with  firm  eye  and  speech : 

"You  are  very  glib,  Mr.  Crisp,  but  I  do  not  find 
that  you  are  ever  anything  more  than  glib.  You 
are  forever  trying  to  bully  people  with  your  glib- 
ness.  You  know  little,  and  you  think  less.  I  am 
not  fond  of  telling  my  fellow-creatures  their  faults ; 
but  this  is  a  case  where  provocation  has  been 
pushed  to  extremity.  If  you  had  as  many  ideas 
as  you  have  words,  you  would  be  a  great  person. 
And  I  am  confident  that  those  who  are  now  de- 
ceived into  rating  you  as  a  great  person  need  only 
use  a  little  shrewdness  to  discover  their  striking 
error." 

He  was  furious;  my-  host  was  furious;  it  looked 


338  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

as  if  his  bevy  of  adorers  would  devour  me  in  their 
fury.  I  walked  from  the  room,  and  presently 
from  the  house  ;  I  suppose  I  was  somewhat  furious 
then  myself. 

Afterward  I  repented  of  my  final  attack,  and 
wrote  Mr.  Gentian  an  apologetic  note.  But  I 
never  retracted  a  word  of  what  I  said  to  Mr.  Pea- 
body  Crisp.  If  the  same  thing  were  to  do  over 
again,  I  don't  think  I  would  do  it;  but,  being 
done,  I  did  not  waste  much  regret  upon  it.  It 
made  me  enemies,  but  not  of  the  sort  I  especial- 
ly dread.  And,  after  all,  I  am  of  opinion  that  I 
had  my  justification,  —  my  causa  belli.  There  is 
always  somebody  to  tell  a  man  he  has  had  that. 
I  need  not  state  that  the  large  constituency  of  Mr. 
Crisp  never  told  me  so.  They  still,  most  probably, 
preserve  their  strict  servitorship  to  the  gentleman 
who  is  glib. 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  389 


XXVI. 

THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL. 

I  WAS  once  seated  in  the  lower  cafe  of  Solari's 
(a  restaurant  which  we  are  too  apt  to  let  the 
larger  fame  of  Delmonico  overshadow  while  we 
record  the  growing  importance  of  New  York  as  a 
city  of  faulty  politics  but  fine  eating),  when  my 
attention  was  oddly  attracted  by  a  pane  of  glass  in 
the  window  near  at  hand.  It  was  of  the  deepest 
blood-red,  and  it  gave  me  a  strange,  lurid,  un- 
earthly glimpse  of  University  Place,  lying  just 
outside.  University  Place,  as  the  most  heedless 
observer  will  admit,  is  a  street  of  excessive  ugli- 
ness ;  but  this  crimson  segment  of  it  that  I  now 
saw  through  the  dyed  pane  transfigured  it  into 
something  curiously  repulsive.  Fascinated  by  the 
oddity  and  quaintness  of  the  fiery  vignette  thus 
afforded,  I  rose  and  took  a  nearer  yet  broader 
view.  I  seemed  to  be  gazing  upon  an  absolutely 
infernal  thoroughfare.  The  most  commonplace 
shop-fronts  assumed  a  glaring  extravagance  of  out- 
line. Everything  was  violently  and  oppressively 
red.  I  re-seated  myself  with  a  smile,  as  the  com- 
panion with  whom  I  had  been  lunching  surprisedly 
watched  me.  He  was  Wilford  Oldfield,  a  man 


340  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

twice  my  own  age,  stout,  rubicund,  genial,  with  a 
large  knowledge  of  men  and  a  habit  of  occasional 
cynicism  as  delicate  as  it  was  unobtrusive. 

"  My  dear  Mark,"  said  Oldfield,  taking  an  olive, 
"have  you  had  your  first  experience  in  looking 
through  a  pane  of  red  glass  ?  " 

"  Not  exactly,"  I  answered,  in  what  was  perhaps 
a  musing  tone.  "But  that  little  glimpse  I  just 
gained  gave  me  a  sensation,  an  impression." 

"  Really  ?  If  it  idealized  the  dinginess  and 
shabbiness  of  University  Place,  I  should  be  inclined 
to  congratulate  you." 

"It  did  n't  idealize  University  Place,"  I  replied  ; 
"it  intensified  and  exaggerated  it.  The  whole 
stupidity  and  monotony  of  it  became  sensationally 
sanguine.  It  resembled  a  street  in  the  planet 
Mars." 

Oldfield  laughed.  "  You  always  were  a  sort  of 
poet  in  embryo,  Mark,"  he  said.  "  If  you  'd  been 
born  to  a  garret  and  a  crust  instead  of  —  how 
many  thousands  is  it  a  year? — you  might  have 
died  moderately  famous.  One  does  n't  meet  every 
day  a  man  who  would  be  reminded  of  anything  so 
extraordinary  by  merely  looking  through  a  bit  of 
dyed  glass  in  one  of  Solari's  windows." 

"  Oh,  it  reminded  me  of  something  else,"  I  said, 
"besides  the  planet  Mars." 

"What?"  asked  Oldfield  quizzically.  "The 
planet  Jupiter?" 

"  No,"  I  returned.    "  Of  Miss  Judith  Merivale." 

My  friend  started,  looked  at  me  wonderingly, 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  341 

and  then  burst  into  one  of  his  full,  blithe  laughs. 
Oldfield  has  a  laugh  which  is  so  like  his  stout, 
comfortable  body  that  I  feel  almost  privileged  to 
call  it  corpulent. 

"  I  see,"  he  said.  "And  yet  perhaps  I  miss  some 
point  of  your  intended  analogy.  Explain." 

"  You  know  her  as  well  as  I  do,"  I  replied.  "In- 
deed, you  ought  to  know  her  much  better,  Oldfield. 
You  've  been  about  town  for  a  century  or  so,  and 
when  I  emerged  from  boyhood,  only  a  few  years 
since,  Judith  Merivale  was  still  a  wealthy  spinster 
of  established  reputation." 

"Reputation  for  what?"  he  questioned,  with  a 
twinkle  of  his  mellow  brown  eye  under  its  fat, 
wrinkled  lid. 

"  For  doing  everything  with  red  fire,  just  like  my 
window-pane  here." 

Oldfield  nodded.  "  I  do  see.  And  I  take  back 
what  I  said  about  your  being  an  undeveloped  poet. 
'  Novelist '  would  have  been  better.  Miss  Judith 
is  sensational.  She  is  colored  by  her  convic- 
tions." 

"And  burningly,"  I  struck  in.  "There  are 
some  people  whose  lives  resemble  a  milky,  meander- 
ing serial  by  Anthony  Trollope,  where  nothing 
more  dramatic  occurs  than  a  visit  of  the  new  rec- 
tor's wife  upon  the  baronet's  maiden  daughter  in 
the  first  chapter,  and  a  visit  of  the  baronet's  maiden 
daughter  upon  the  new  rector's  wife  in  chapter  the 
eighty-second.  There  are  other  people  who  remind 
one  of  the  analytical,  immoral,  sentimental,  or  lach- 


342  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ryniose  novels  by  various  other  authors.  But  Miss 
Judith  Merivale  suggests  the  story  in  the  '  penny 
dreadfuls.'  She  is  nothing,  if  not  flamboyant." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  she  is  vulgar,  Mark  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no  !  "  I  said. 

And  he  was  right.  She  is  not.  She  is  simply 
flamboyant,  as  certain  flowers  are  (such  as  a  gaudy 
marigold  or  a  spotted  dahlia),  which  we  cannot 
help  admiring,  with  discreet,  reserved  sympathies 
for  a  violet  or  a  tea-rose.  It  chanced  that  I  had 
an  engagement  to  drop  in  for  some  tea  that  same 
afternoon  at  Miss  Judith  Merivale's  house  (no  one 
ever  forgot  the  oriental  "Judith,"  somehow,  in 
naming  her),  and  this  fact  may  have  helped  to 
incite  the  rather  uncharitable  fervor  of  my  recent 
comparison. 

I  went  to  see  Miss  Judith  an  hour  or  two  later, 
and  was  received  by  her  with  a  smile  full  of  mys- 
tery, subtlety,  and  magnetism.  A  few  other  guests 
were  present,  drinking  tea,  and  chatting  together ; 
but  Miss  Judith  chose  to  ignore  the  presence  of 
these  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  devote  herself,  for 
some  time,  exclusively  to  myself. 

She  always  receives  quite  alone.  She  has  a 
mother  who  is  never  visible,  and  she  stands,  as 
one  might  say,  a  relieved,  solitary,  original  figure 
in  the  midst  of  New  York  social  life.  She  "  got 
in"  (as  the  coarse  phrase  puts  it)  among  people 
who  concern  themselves  with  select  surroundings, 
a  number  of  years  ago.  Some  people  assert  that 
she  made  her  first  success  in  Rome :  she  is  very 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  343 

fond  of  telling  you  about  her  days,  weeks,  or  months 
in  Rome.  However  this  may  have  been,  she  is  now 
so  securely  placed  that  nobody  ever  thinks  of  ask- 
ing a  word  with  regard  to  her  antecedents.  The 
invisible  mother,  and  the  pretty  basement  house 
in  Thirty-Third  Street,  and  Miss  Judith  herself, 
with  her  positively  enormous  and  overwhelming 
personality,  now  completely  blunt  all  snobbish 
inquiry.  She  is  as  much  taken  for  granted  in 
active  and  existent  society  as  one  of  the  velvet- 
leaved  roses  at  one  of  her  own  tasteful  little  din- 
ner-parties. 

You  might  have  thought  of  a  rose  as  you  looked 
at  her ;  yet,  if  you  had  done  so,  it  would  have  been 
one  of  those  sultry  Jacqueminots,  with  petals  not 
as  fresh  as  they  once  had  been,  but  a  little  curled 
and  fletries  at  the  edges.  She  had  once  had  a  really 
brilliant  complexion ;  but  a  few  tiny  and  stealthy 
wrinkles  about  her  large,  soft  gray  eyes,  and  at 
the  corners  of  her  full,  sweet,  expressive  lips,  now 
somewhat  mar  this  precious  charm.  Her  nose,  in 
its  abandonment  of  symmetry,  should  perhaps  not 
be  recorded  of  her,  so  to  speak :  there  seems  even 
a  sort  of  ungallantry  in  mentioning  it,  since  the 
rest  of  her  face  is  a  sort  of  wistful  feminine  apology 
for  her  having  it  at  all.  She  has  a  figure  which  I 
can  no  better  describe  than  in  recalling  a  flower 
(it  seems  to  me  that  1  am  always  in  some  way  com- 
paring her  to  a  flower)  that  has  lost  the  first  natu- 
ral bend  upon  its  stem.  She  is  full  of  curves ;  but 
they  are  curves  that  imply  an  undue  relaxation, 


344  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

—  a  limpness,  in  fact,  hardly  noticed  before  con- 
trolled and  corrected.  She  possesses  a  real  glory 
of  hair;  it  is  red  in  the  way  that  the  hair  of 
Rubens's  women  is  sometimes  red,  and  she  wears 
it  in  a  kind  of  sumptuous  turmoil  over  her  broad 
white  forehead  and  her  sheer,  sybil-like,  blue- 
veined  temples.  She  dresses  oddly,  but  not  at 
all  aesthetically.  Whistler  and  Alma  Tadema'had 
not  yet  palpably  transpired  as  motives  of  reform 
when  she  began  to  robe  herself,  and  I  think  that, 
even  if  they  had,  Miss  Judith  would  possibly  have 
eschewed  their  tenets. 

She  received  me  with  a  burst  of  cordiality. 
She  had  a  hoarse  note  in  her  voice,  which  was  not 
unlike  the  dulcet  though  novel  timbre  in  the  voice 
of  Ellen  Terry,  that  mistress  of  luring  vocalism. 

"  You  came,"  she  said,  as  we  sank  on  one  of  the 
lounges,  side  by  side.  "  I  feared  you  would  not 
come.  I  am  so  glad  that  you  did  come  !  " 

I  was  prepared  for  something  vivid  and  piercing. 
"Why?"  I  inquired. 

Miss  Judith  lowered  her  voice.  "  Oh,  because  I 
wanted  to  ask  your  advice,"  she  responded,  devour- 
ing me  with  her  tragic  gray  eyes.  "You  know  of 
Mabel  Wainwright's  engagement  to  Charlie  North- 
river  having  been  broken  off?  " 

"  Oh,  yes !  " 

"Poor  Mabel  did  it  herself,  in  a  fit  of  foolish 
petulance  at  nothing.  And  now  she  wants  me  — 
me,  to  act  as  an  emissary  in  setting  matters  right 
between  them." 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  345 

"  Well  ?  "  I  inquired  as  Miss  Judith,  paused, 
"  Shall  you  not  do  so  ?  " 

"  Do  so !  "  My  companion  drooped  her  gaze, 
and  stared  down  at  a  snake  of  green  enamel,  with 
rubies  for  eyes,  which  she  wore  clasped  about  one 
of  her  wrists.  "  Oh,  you  don't  know  —  you  don't 
understand,  Mr.  Manhattan !  It  was  because  of 
this  request  that  I  sent  for  you.  Ah !  poor  Mabel 
thinks  that  a  lover's  quarrel  is  easily  mended. 
But  she  does  not  dream  of  the  truth." 

I  seemed  to  see  the  glare  of  the  footlights  be- 
tween Miss  Judith  and  myself  as  I  answered, 
"What  truth?" 

"  Charles  Northriver  no  longer  cares  for  Mabel," 
she  whispered.  "  She  does  not  dream  of  this,  but 
I  know  it.  He  welcomes  his  freedom,  while  she  be- 
lieves him  eating  out  his  heart  with  remorse.  And 
yet  what  am  I  to  do  ?  Think  of  my  position ! " 

I  tried  to  look  as  if  I  were  thinking  of  her 
position,  and  Miss  Judith  continued  in  tones  of 
extreme  yet  smothered  fervor : 

"  On  the  one  hand  I  am  swayed  by  every  duti- 
ful feeling  of  loyalty  towards  the  friend  whom  I 
prize.  On  the  other  I  am  thrilled — yes,  thrilled 
-  by  indignation  at  the  treachery  of  the  man  she 
worships.  Can  I  go  to  this  man  and  calmly  say : 
4  Mabel  repents  of  her  severity ;  she  awaits  you ; 
seek  her '  ?  Can  I  do  this  ?  No  !  And  why  ? 
Because  that  man  is  not  only  glad  of  his  escape, 
but  because  he  loves  another.  Yes;  he  loves 
Daisy  Yonkers ! " 


346  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"Are  you  quite  sure  that  he  does?"  I  ventured, 
feeling  that  my  first  step  as  a  so-called  counsellor 
should  be  a  patient  inquiry  into  facts. 

"  Sure !  I  am  absolutely  confident.  Daisy  her- 
self has  dropped  more  than  one  pointed  hint  to 
this  effect.  Ah !  what  a  subtle  creature  that  girl 
is !  She  always  makes  me  think  of  Vivien, 
while  poor  Mabel  —  she  makes  me  think  of  Elaine. 
Have  you  ever  watched  Daisy  and  Charlie  North- 
river  when  they  chance  to  meet  ?  At  the  High- 
bridges'  dinner,  last  Tuesday,  he  sat  next  to  her. 
I  saw  him  let  a  rosebud  fall  into  her  lap  when  he 
thought  no  one  was  looking.  And  she  cleverly 
hid  it,  a  little  later,  in  the  heart  of  her  bouquet. 

0  Mr.  Manhattan  !  what  a  cruelly  deceitful  world 
this  is !     I  often  turn  sick  when  I  think  of  all  the 
misery  that  human  beings  are  perpetually  causing 
each  other.     And  now  what  shall  I  do  ?  how  shall 

1  act?" 

This  whole  lamentation  on  the  part  of  Miss 
Judith  had  a  purely  chimerical  origin.  The  es- 
trangement between  Charlie  Northriver  and  Mabel 
Wainwright  was  a  merely  temporary  affair.  He 
was  no  more  in  love  with  Miss  Daisy  Yonkers 
than  he  was  in  love  with  the  Queen  of  Great 
Britain.  They  were  simply  good  friends,  and  for 
several  years  past  had  enjoyed  pleasant,  intimate 
tete-d-tetes  together,  and  would  so  enjoy  others 
in  the  future,  perhaps,  for  years  to  come.  The 
intercession  of  Miss  Judith  between  the  bleeding 
heart  of  Mabel  and  the  loveless,  triumphant  one 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  347 

of  Charlie,  had  never  been  solicited  or  even  con- 
ceived by  either  of  the  pair.  They  were  perfectly 
capable  of  effecting  their  own  reconciliation. 
Miss  Judith  imagined  that  she  had  been  called 
upon  to  act  as  mediator.  I  don't  mean  that  she 
fabricated  any  spurious  story  to  me;  I  mean  that 
she  merely  took  plain  truths  and  clad  them  in  the 
mythical  phosphorescence  of  her  own  fancy. 

And  so  it  is  with  her  always.  "  You  are  late 
for  dinner,  my  dear  Judith,"  some  friendly  hostess 
will  say  to  her,  when  she  arrives,  at  half-past  seven 
instead  of  seven  o'clock. 

"  Caroline,"  she  will  perhaps  reply,  with  a  gen- 
tle clutch  of  the  lady's  arm,  and  a  look  from  the 
big  gray  eyes  full  of  sombre  eloquence,  "it  is 
miraculous  that  you  have  me  here  at  all.  Just  as 
my  coupS  was  turning  the  corner  of  Twenty- 
Third  Street,  a  sudden  horrible,  dislocating  shock 
occurred.  What  saved  my  head  from  being  dashed 
through  the  pane  of  the  front  window  and  del- 
uging me  with  my  own  blood,  I  cannot  imagine. 
As  it  was,  half  mad  with  alarm,  I  flung  open  the 
carriage-door,  and  committed  the  wild  folly  of 
leaping  forth  upon  the  pavement.  Luckily  the 
carriage  had  by  this  time  stopped,  or  I  should 
now"  — 

And  so  on,  with  every  resource  of  florid  and 
pyrotechnic  narration.  The  unvarnished  (shall  I 
say  the  unfiligreed  ?  )  truth  would  have  been  that 
the  cab-horse  had  stumbled  badly  in  taking  Miss 
Judith  to  her  dinner-party,  and  that  she  was  so 


848  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

frightened  that  she  got  out  of  the  cab  after  it  had 
stopped.  This,  and  nothing  more. 

There  are  some  people  of  whom  we  say  that 
their  geese  are  all  swans.  Miss  Judith  Merivale  is 
a  person  of  whom  it  might  be  declared  that  her 
barnyard  fowls  are  all  birds  of  paradise.  Nothing 
happens  to  her  just  as  it  happens  to  the  remainder 
of  purblind  and  articulate-speaking  humanity. 
She  garnishes  the  commonest  incidents  with  fan- 
tastic impromptu  adornments  quite  her  own.  All 
her  acts  might  be  described  as  the  ordinary  and 
unusual  performance,  plus  a  kind  of  emotional 
cupola.  She  has  undoubtedly  received  marked 
attention  from  certain  members  of  the  male  sex. 
Every  episode  of  this  sort  has  acquired  an  excep- 
tional and  startling  saliency.  If  she  ever  received 
the  passionate  devotion  of  even  one  particular 
suitor  whose  impetuosity  made  her  repeated  re- 
fusals each  one  a  separate  ordeal  of  pain,  is  not 
accurately  known.  But  she  certainly  has  man- 
aged somehow  to  invest  herself  with  a  reputation 
for  having  more  than  once  weathered  severe  spir- 
itual tempests.  Her  residence  in  Europe  is 
vaguely  understood  to  have  been  rendered  stormy 
by  the  importunities  of  desperate  admirers. 

"  What  a  remarkably  handsome  man !  "  I  once 
said,  pausing  at  a  certain  page  in  her  album  of 
photographs.  "  He  is  an  Italian,  surely,  with  that 
crinkled  hair  and  that  sensitive  cut  of  feature." 

She  leaned  over  the  book,  which  I  held,  as  if  to 
make  sure  of  the  likeness  to  which  I  alluded. 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  349 

Then,  seeing  it,  she  suddenly  withdrew,  giving  an 
almost  audible  shudder. 

"Yes,"  she  presently  murmured.  "He  had 
marvellous  beauty.  I  —  I  don't  know  why  I  let 
his  picture  remain  there.  Some  souvenirs  have 
not  the  right  to  exist  for  us,  except  in  ashes.  I 
should  have  burned  that  one  long  ago.  I  —  I 
have  no  idea  why  I  did  not.  Have  you  ?  " 

"  Not  the  slightest,"  I  returned  with  uncompro- 
mising dryness. 

"  You  are  always  so  matter-of-fact  with  me,"  she 
said,  after  a  pause,  during  which  I  turned  over  the 
leaves  of  the  album,  and  knew  perfectly  well  that 
she  was  regarding  me  with  solemn  fixity.  "  And 
yet  I  know  that  you  have  sympathy  with  depths 
and  heights  of  feeling  in  others ;  that  you  can  tirer 
sur  le  mors,  just  as  that  poor  Julio  did,  when  your 
mood  pleases." 

"  Really  ?  "  I  questioned  bluntly  enough.  "  Who 
told  you  anything  so  absurd  about  me  as  that  I 
could  or  would  tirer  sur  le  mors?" 

She  gave  a  soft,  long  laugh.  "  Do  you  suppose 
that  I  have  not  heard  certain  things  as  well  as 
others  ?  "  she  went  on.  "  Do  you  suppose  I  am 
ignorant  of  that  little  rosy  incident  in  your  life 
when  you  were  so  infatuated  with  Cora  "  — 

I  prevented  her  from  finishing  the  name  by 
dropping  her  heavy  album  upon  the  floor.  I  did 
it  as  if  by  accident,  and  while  I  picked  the  volume 
up  I  said  apologetically : 

"  I  beg  pardon,  Miss  Judith,  for  nearly  breaking 


350  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

your  album.  But  it  was  a  little  too  ponderous 
for  my  knees." 

She  immediately  saw  (or  chose  to  see)  me  in 
her  light.  Her  manner  would  now  have  done  for 
that  of  a  leading  lady  in  one  of  Sardou's  or  Au- 
gier's  most  bristling  comedies.  She  raised  her 
forefinger  and  shook  it.  She  drooped  her  head 
side  ways,  and  gave  all  her  figure  a  languid  curve. 

"  Ah  !  you  are  supernaturally  clever,'"  she  said. 
"  What  a  diplomatist  you  would  have  made  !  You 
have  every  device  of  concealment  au  bout  des  Uvres 
—  and  at  your  fingers'  ends  as  well.  And  yet  how 
idle  to  try  and  deceive  me,  who  read  you  so  well ! 
I  have  learned  to  read  both  men  and  women  —  ah, 
too  well !  It  so  often  fatigues  me  to  think  of  my 
own  dreary  and  ravaging  experiences." 

It  also  fatigued  me  to  think  of  them  —  especially 
as  I  distrusted  them.  I  am  afraid  that  on  this  oc- 
casion I  made  my  ennui  only  too  clearly  manifest. 

"  I  sometimes  believe  that  she  has  no  heart  — 
that  she  is  entirely  made  up  of  this  melodramatic 
affectation,"  I  once  said  to  a  sensible  woman  who 
knows  her  well,  and  likes  her  —  as  I  confess  that  I 
do,  in  spite  of  every  rational  and  tantalizing  objec- 
tion to  such  a  result. 

"  You  mistake,"  said  the  lady  —  my  friend  and 
Miss  Judith's  as  well.  "She  has  a  very  good  and 
honest  heart.  She  is  a  woman  both  of  large  natu- 
ral feelings  and  capable  talents." 

"  Oh,  I  admit  her  talents." 

*'  But  she  has  more  than  those.     Aufond  she  is 


THE  LADY  WHO  IS  SENSATIONAL.  361 

thoroughly  genuine.  She  rings  true  when  you 
sound  her  vigorously." 

"  I  have  never  sounded  her  vigorously.  I  should 
not  dare.  I  have  an  idea  that  it  might  cause  a 
clamor  which  would  be  heard  from  here  to  Phila- 
delphia." 

"  Not  at  all,"  came  the  reply. 

"Are  you  serious? "  I  said  interestedly. 

"  Yes.  Judith  is  simply  of  the  romantic  tem- 
perament. It  is  her  temperament  that  makes  peo- 
ple laugh  at  her.  She  has  never  done  a  really 
wrong  tiling  in  her  life ;  she  is,  on  the  contrary, 
brimming  with  good  and  wholesome  impulses.  I 
distrust  all  her  suggestions  regarding  that  eventful 
Roman  and  Parisian  past.  I  don't  believe  she  has 
ever  known  a  man  to  be  really  very  much  in  love 
with  her  since  she  left  school." 

"  Truly  ?  Do  you  think  it  could  have  been  her 
unsympathetic  nose  ?  " 

"  Now,  don't  be  cruel.  It  is  n't  like  you.  Judith 
does  n't  deserve  it,  either.  She  can't  resist  posing. 
If  she  had  been  a  man,  she  would  have  done  the 
most  outre  and.  abnormal  things." 

"  She  does  them  now." 

"  Not  at  all.  She  merely  indicates  them.  Per- 
haps she  even  persuades  herself  that  she  has  done 
them.  In  any  case,  she  refers  to  imaginary  ex- 
ploits as  if  they  were  real." 

"Oh!"  I  laughed,  "that  sort  of  conduct  is 
sometimes  called  by  a  bad  name." 

"  I  know.    You  mean  that  it  is  called  hypocrisy. 


352  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

But  Judith's  hypocrisy  is  only  skin-deep.  l  A 
primrose  by  the  river's  brim  '  is  not  a  primrose  to 
her  at  all :  it  is  a  flaunting  peony  or  a  flaring  mar- 
igold. I  grant  all  that  nonsense  in  her.  But  she 
has  deeper,  truer  traits,  which  make  such  superfici- 
ality of  little  import  to  those  who  know  her  well." 

I  pondered  these  tidings  after  having  received 
them.  Their  source  made  them  worthy  of  consid- 
eration. 

Possibly  our  mutual  friend  is  right.  Still,  I 
retain  my  doubts.  However,  I  may  be  wrong. 
Women  know  women  best.  Allowing  that  this 
last  merciful  judgment  is  the  true  one,  I  neverthe- 
less maintain  that  to  pass  through  life  wrapped  in 
such  an  emblazoned  garment  of  outward  insincer- 
ity is  hardly  excused  by  the  possession  of  rich  fem- 
inine virtues  behind  it. 

I  am  at  present  awaiting  a  change  for  the  better 
in  Miss  Judith's  daily  deportment.  I  want  to  hear 
of  her  that  she  has  walked  from  the  Brunswick 
Hotel  to  Central  Park  without  thinking  the  act 
worthy  of  special  and  agitated  chronicling.  I 
want  to  feel  that  I  am  not  forever  looking  at  her 
through  that  blood-red  pane  of  glass  in  Solari's 
window.  Our  friend  assures  me  that  the  moment 
she  falls  fairly  and  firmly  in  love,  she  will  forsake 
all  her  distressing  and  tedious  caprices. 

"  But  meanwhile,"  I  ask,  "  who  is  to  fall  fairly 
and  firmly  in  love  with  her  ?  I  anticipate  with  in- 
terest and  anxiety  the  lover  who  shall  work  this 
incredible  change." 


THE  LADY  WHO  is  CONSERVATIVE.         353 

"  Oh,  he  will  come,"  says  my  friend  confidently. 
"  He  will  come,  some  day." 

"  But  what  will  he  be  when  he  does  come  ?  "  I 
question. 

"He  will  be  — a  man,  of  course." 

"  Excuse  me,"  I  respond,  still  thinking  of  the 
window  at  Solari's.  "  I  have  my  belief  that  he 
will  be  —  well,  let  us  say  some  stray  inhabitant  of 
the  planet  Mars." 


354  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 


XXVII. 

THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG. 

WHAT  man  who  lias  ever  gone  into  the  whirl  and 
glitter  of  his  first  ball  does  not  clearly  remember 
it  ?  I  remember  mine.  I  was  about  twenty-three, 
and  I  appeared  in  a  room  filled  with  lights,  flowers, 
music,  dancing  or  sitting  guests,  hilarious  festivity, 
and  yet  I  did  not  know  a  soul  with  whom  I  could 
exchange  a  single  authorized  word. 

True  enough,  I  was  Mark  Manhattan.  But  who 
knew  or  cared  for  that?  I  was  young,  and  I  had 
never  been  seen  before.  I  had  bowed  to  my  host- 
ess, and  passed  on.  Other  people,  I  perceived, 
were  bowing  and  passing  on.  But  nobody  passed 
on  as  I  did,  without  finding  somebody  else  whom 
he  could  pause  beside  and  talk  to.  I  could  not  find 
a  soul.  I  roamed  hither  and  thither,  en  martyr. 

And  yet  everyone  was  staring  at  me,  or  so  I  felt. 
I  sidled  near  an  alcove,  and  found  that  my  back 
had  come  into  contact  with  two  male  and  female 
beings  seated  there.  I  blundered  away,  murmur- 
ing an  apology,  which  was  perhaps  unheard  above 
the  brisk  and  dulcet  waltz.  I  discovered  a  small 
knot  of  observant  gentlemen,  and  shrank  behind 
one  of  them,  whose  shoulders  were  shieldingly 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.     355 

broad,  and  whose  general  physical  height  and  bulk 
offered  a  most  tempting  ambuscade.  But  suddenly 
this  gentleman,  just  as  I  had  cleverly  ensconced 
myself  in  his  rear,  made  a  dash  forward  for  the 
purpose  of  joining  some  passing  lady,  and  I  was 
once  more  left  mercilessly  and  glaringly  revealed. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  wide,  critical  stare  at  once 
began  again.  Was  I  quite  sure  that  there  was  noth- 
ing in  my  costume  out  of  order  ?  Had  I  given 
sufficient  attention  to  my  white  necktie  ?  Might 
it  not  have  drooped,  sagged,  grown  demoralized  ? 
Did  my  new  coat  fit  me  rightly  ?  Were  my  trousers 
bagging  at  the  knees?  Had  my  chaste  oval  of 
shirt-bosom  become  wrinkled  ?  Some  of  the  beau- 
tiful young  girls,  with  their  milky  necks  and  arms, 
and  their  ethereal  dresses,  seemed  to  pass  me  in  a 
sort  of  lovety  disdain.  "  Why  do  you  come  here 
at  all,  you  horrid  young  hobbledehoy  ?  "  their  red, 
smiling  lips  seemed  to  inquire.  I  wondered 
whether  it  would  look  very  strange  if  I  slipped 
out  of  the  rooms  by  a  back  door,  thence  up  stairs, 
and  thence,  after  procuring  my  wraps,  down  again 
to  the  street.  Of  course,  such  a  proceeding  would 
be  noticed  at  this  early  hour  of  the  evening,  and 
especially  as  my  appearance  had  caused  so  uni- 
versal and  extraordinary  a  scrutiny.  But,  even  if 
it  did  make  them  talk  a  little,  why  should  I  care  ? 
I  meant  never,  never  to  go  into  society  again.  I 
was  not  fitted  for  it;  perhaps  I  was  above  its 
flippancies;  perhaps  I  was  below  its  graces  and 
felicities.  However  this  might  be,  I  had  emphat- 


356  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

ically  seen  my  last  evening  of  mirth  and  melody, 
of  revelry  and  roses. 

While  this  gloomy  resolution  was  shaping  itself 
within  my  spirit,  I  found  myself  affably  addressed 
by  a  person  standing  at  my  elbow.  He  was  an 
elderly  gentleman,  and  he  then  appeared  to  my 
grateful  mind  the  most  charming  elderly  gentle- 
man in  all  the  world.  It  was  so  delightful  to  be 
noticed  at  last  in  a  conversational  way  —  to  feel 
one's  self  an  appreciable  unit  in  the  ignoring 
throng.  I  looked  into  the  face  of  my  companion 
while  he  spoke,  and  at  first  decided  that  he  was  a 
personnagc.  His  pure  white  mustache  flowed 
toward  either  pink  cheek  in  rippling  fulness ;  his 
white  hair,  still  abundant,  gleamed  above  a  pair  of 
restless  hazel  eyes ;  his  form  was  compact  and  of 
good  apparent  capability.  He  had  a  bunch  of  vio- 
lets in  the  lappel  of  his  coat,  and  he  posed  his  arms 
with  a  jaunty  curve.  He  was  clearly  old,  and  yet 
a  most  elastic  and  potent  vitality  still  dwelt  in 
him.  You  felt  that  his  foot  was  planted  upon  the 
floor  with  a  firmness  to  which  his  actual  age  did 
not  correspond. 

But  closer  observation  soon  resulted  in  a  new 
judgment.  His  impressiveness  was  wholly  physi- 
cal and  facial.  It  was  indeed  hardly  even  the 
latter ;  for  when  you  looked  well  into  his  coun- 
tenance you  saw  there  a  certain  vacancy  that 
matched  the  inane  quality  of  his  words.  Later  it 
became  plain  to  me  that  he  would  just  as  soon 
make  himself  audible  in  my  society  as  in  that  of 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.      857 

anyone  else.  He  had  really  nothing  to  say ;  it 
was  all  a  stream  of  copious,  artless  prattle.  It 
was  about  the  weather,  about  the  heat  of  the 
rooms,  about  the  temperature  desirable  at  a  ball, 
about  a  ball  last  night  where  the  temperature  was 
just  high  enough,  about  the  new  way  in  which 
young  girls  wore  their  hair,  about  the  prevalence 
of  white  dresses  causing  the  whole  festival  to  lack 
gayety.  And  sometimes  it  was  about  absolutely 
nothing,  in  so  far  as  I  could  ascertain,  while  he 
babbled  on  in  his  short,  jerky  sentences,  and  in  his 
guttural,  monotonous,  but  entirely  genial  tones. 

I  noticed  that  he  bowed  often,  as  the  ladies  with 
their  escorts  moved  past  us,  and  that  many  bows 
were  given  him  in  return.  He  appeared  to  know 
everybody,  as  the  phrase  goes.  I  had  said  very 
little  myself  thus  far ;  but  feeling  that  he  doubt- 
less had  it  in  his  power  to  make  me  acquainted 
with  at  least  three-quarters  of  the  assembled  guests, 
if  so  disposed,  I  ventured  to  sound  his  good  nature 
on  this  important  point.  I  began  by  telling  him 
that  I  had  hoped  to  meet  a  few  of  my  relations 
there  that  night,  but  that  none  of  them  chanced 
to  be  present,  —  a  circumstance  which  I  was  com- 
pelled to  regret,  as  it  prevented  me  from  securing 
an  introduction  to  any  of  the  attractive  young 
ladies  whom  I  saw  on  all  sides.  "  And  to-night,?' 
I  finished,  "  is  really  my  first  appearance  in  New 
York  society." 

"  I  know  nearly  everybody,"  he  secretly  glad- 
dened me  by  saying  in  his  rapid,  spasmodic,  cordial 


358  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

way.  "  I  guess  I  could  fix  things  for  you.  Let 's 
see  —  you  said  your  name  was  "  — 

I  Lad  not  said  what  my  name  was,  but  on  hear- 
ing it  the  gentleman  grasped  my  hand  and  declared 
himself  on  the  best  of  terms  with  about  fifty  of 
my  relations.  He  talked  so  much  of  the  large 
Manhattan  family,  flying  from  members  of  it  who 
lived  to  members  of  it  who  had  long  ago  been 
dead,  that  I  conceived  a  fear  lest  he  should  quite 
forget  his  previous  offer. 

But  he  did  not  forget  it ;  or  rather  a  gentle  re- 
minder on  my  part  stopped  the  ample  current  of 
his  reminiscences,  and  I  was  subsequently  made 
to  know  several  of  the  ladies  present.  I  owe  to 
him  my  launching,  as  it  were,  upon  the  social 
stream.  And  I  soon  learned  just  who  the  gentle- 
man was  by  whose  kindness  I  had  benefited. 

His  name  was  Billington,  and  for  years  he  had 
been  called  Old  Beau  Billington.  His  age  was 
estimated  to  be  seventy,  if  a  day,  though  he  might 
even  have  been  older.  There  was  a  time  when  he 
appeared  in  the  exclusive  circles  of  New  York, 
and  received  many  sidelong  looks  of  distrust. 
Few  strangers  ever  crossed,  in  those  days,  our 
quiet  Knickerbocker  limits.  Mr.  Billington  was 
reported  to  have  come  originally  from  an  Eastern 
State,  but  he  had  lived  several  years  abroad.  It 
was  such  a  picturesque  thing,  then,  to  have  lived 
several  years  abroad !  But  a  great  deal  of  suspi- 
cion at  first  attached  to  the  brilliant  new-comer, 
who  danced  the  antique  cotillon  with  so  ravish- 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.     359 

ingly  graceful  a  pigeon' s-wing,  who  wore  his  stock 
with  so  modish  an  elegance,  and  who  whispered 
compliments  garnished  by  so  novel  an  embellish- 
ment of  dainty  French  idiom.  But  for  some  time 
Beau  Billington  had  to  carefully  work  his  way. 
Our  grandmothers  remember  being  cautioned 
against  him  in  their  girlhood.  Bowling  Green 
was  then  the  Madison  Square  of  our  little  provin- 
cial, semi-Dutch  New  York,  and  more  than  one 
pretty  girl  was  instructed  by  her  sedulous  mother 
to  turn  her  face  in  another  direction  when  she  met 
Mr.  Billington  strolling  in  beflowered  waistcoat 
and  with  nicely-poised  cane  along  the  streets  bor- 
dering on  that  miniature  park.  The  Amsterdams, 
Ten  Eycks,  and  Van  Twillers  for  the  most  part 
disapproved  of  him.  He  lived  on  an  income  of 
his  own,  and  did  no  business.  It  was  such  an 
unprecedented  thing  for  any  young  gentleman,  at 
that  time,  to  do  no  business !  It  seemed  quite 
shocking  that  he  should  haunt  the  breezy  Battery 
of  an  afternoon,  while  all  the  scions  of  respectable 
families  were  poring  decorously  over  ledgers  and 
accounts  in  the  offices  of  their  merchant  parents. 
But  the  blooming  daughters  of  Knickerbocker- 
dom  did  not  all  obey  the  parental  behest.  Some 
of  them  rankly  and  daringly  disobeyed  it.  They 
found  Beau  Billington,  whose  clothes  fitted  him  to 
such  perfection  and  whose  foreign  touches  were  so 
irresistibly  winsome,  a  great  deal  more  interesting 
than  their  brothers  and  cousins  and  friends,  who 
held  it  disreputable  to  be  seen  smoking  a  cigar  in 


360  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

"business  hours,"  and  who  cared  as  much  for  a 
verse  of  poetry  as  for  the  Koran  or  the  Talmud. 
Beau  Billington  cared  for  poetrjr,  and  could  write 
stanzas  of  it  that  were  simply  adorable.  He  had 
met  Lord  Byron  abroad,  and  had  once  spent  an 
evening  in  his  company.  There  was  a  fascinating 
wickedness  about  this  fact  —  if  fact  it  could  really 
be  termed.  His  stanzas  all  had  the  most  romantic 
ring.  They  were  full  of  phrases  like,  "  Fair  lady, 
at  thy  shrine  I  lay  my  heart,"  and 

"  When  silver  Dian  beams  above, 

And  summer  dewdrops  glisten  clear, 
I  drop,  in  memory  of  my  love, 
A  tender  but  respectful  tear." 

Certain  copies  of  Mr.  Billington's  poetic  tributes 
went  fluttering  like  little  insidious  doves  among 
the  genteel  maidens  of  old  New  York.  But,  unlike 
doves,  they  carried  trouble  instead  of  peace  below 
their  sly  literary  wings.  And  one  day  society 
woke  to  the  alarming  news  that  Miss  Elizabeth 
Manhattan  (very  probably  one  of  my  own  direct 
ancestresses)  had  openly  braved  the  wrath  of  both 
her  parents,  and  declared  that  she  would  either 
marry  Beau  Billington  or  live  and  die  a  spinster. 
The  young  lovers  had  been  caught,  one  spring 
afternoon,  together,  wandering  in  sweet  converse 
far  out  into  the  country.  They  had  crossed  the 
sluggish  little  canal  that  is  now  Canal  Street,  and 
before  the  cruel  destroyers  of  their  peace  pounced 
upon  them  they  must  have  reached  those  leafy, 
rural  regions  which  lay  where  Union  Square  now 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.     361 

lifts  to  an  unmindful  public  its  libellous  statue  of 
Lincoln. 

But  they  were  dragged  apart,  and  a  great  scandal 
followed.  Beau  Billington,  deluged  with  senti- 
mental sympathy  from  one  source,  and  pelted  with 
animadversions  from  another,  remained  majesti- 
cally constant  to  his  aristocratic  sweetheart.  Pop- 
ular feeling  ran  high ;  everybody  took  either  one 
side  or  another.  The  entire  Van  Horn  family  cut 
every  member  of  the  Schenectady  family,  one 
Sunday  morning,  at  the  door  of  Old  Trinity, 
just  after  church,  in  consequence  of  different  opin- 
ions on  this  mighty  and  absorbing  subject.  There 
was  even  some  talk  of  a  duel  between  Beau  Bil- 
lington and  a  fiery  young  brother  of  poor  Eliza- 
beth Manhattan.  The  duel  was  to  take  place 
somewhere  "  across  the  river  ; "  report  even  named 
the  precise  historic  spot  in  which  Burr  had  killed 
Hamilton.  But  I  believe  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  duel  failed  to  take  place. 

Something  sadder  took  place,  however.  Eliza- 
beth paled,  faded,  and  drooped  in  her  captivity. 
Her  parents  continued  relentless.  She  was  a  great 
heiress  —  great,  that  is,  for  those  days  ;  she  would 
probably  inherit,  if  she  lived,  the  massive  sum  of 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  Her  father  was  a  very  rich 
man ;  he  had  four  children,  and  it  was  confidently 
expected  that  they  would  receive  a  fortune  of  at 
least  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  between  them. 

But  poor,  love-lorn  Elizabeth  inherited  nothing. 
Jt  is  stated  that  she  died  literally  of  a  broken 


362  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

heart.  I  am  writing  of  generations  ago.  Hearts 
were  more  brittle  in  New  York  society  then  than 
now.  They  broke  then  sometimes  ;  now  they  get 
sprained  a  little,  like  a  wrist  or  an  ankle,  and 
ultimately  recover. 

Beau  Billington's  fidelity  survived  the  death  of 
his  Elizabeth.  He  never  married.  He  went  to 
Boston  and  lived  there  for  two  or  three  years,  and 
at  length  returned  to  New  York.  All  the  slander- 
ous stories  about  his  being  a  moneyless  adventurer 
were  slowly  and  thoroughly  refuted.  He  had 
been  in  every  respect  what  he  had  represented 
himself.  His  attachment  to  the  young  heiress, 
from  whom  he  was  so  mercilessly  torn,  clad  him 
with  a  new  charm,  melancholy  and  delicate,  as 
years  slipped  on.  His  fealty  to  her  memory  kept 
his  popularity  forever  fresh.  He  was  still  young, 
and  still  unusually  handsome.  He  wrote  new 
verses  for  the  albums  of  many  devout  feminine 
friends.  But  they  were  all  tinged  with  the  same 
hue  of  sadness.  "  The  loved  and  the  lost "  re- 
curred again  and  again  amid  their  funereal  iambics. 

And  here  comes  the  real  pathos  of  my  history. 
Beau  Billington  gradually  grew  old ;  but  he  grew 
old  in  the  most  unskilful  and  injudicious  way.  If 
he  had  died  at  forty,  his  fame  as  a  new  Abelard  of 
constancy  might  have  been  preserved  intact.  If  he 
had  retired  from  the  world  at  forty-five,  there 
might  still  have  remained  a  rich  chance  for  his 
future  poetic  and  legendary  coronation  as  hero 
and  martyr.  Years  of  gout  and  rheumatism, 


THE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.       363 

passed  in  seclusion,  would  still  have  left  his  chiv- 
alrous renown  untarnished.  But  he  chose  to 
linger  in  drawing-rooms  until  every  vestige  of 
youth  had  departed  from  him.  His  superabun- 
dant physical  health,  and  his  undying  love  for  the 
pomp  and  glitter  of  fashion,  had  ruined  him  as  a 
type  of  manly  devotion.  He  became  a  senile 
bachelor,  whom  everyone  tolerated  and  laughed  at. 

Thus  he  stood  on  the  evening  we  met.  The 
grandchildren  and  the  great-grandchildren  of  all 
those  who  once  made  his  name  a  sort  of  social 
war-cry,  lazily  recollected  his  old  prestige  while 
they  yawned  at  the  dreary  figments  of  his  wander- 
ing brain.  He  was  like  a  theatre  from  which  the 
audience  have  departed,  and  in  which  the  lights 
of  the  auditorium  burn  no  longer,  while,  strangely 
enough,  the  performance  on  the  stage  still  contin- 
ues, but  with  what  mockery  of  its  old  alertness, 
vigor,  and  vivacity !  How  tame  and  thin  it  looks 
and  sounds  beside  the  energy  and  ring  of  the  old 
entertainment ! 

The  romance  lingering  about  this  plaintive 
little  story  of  the  old  Beau's  past  devotion  ap- 
pealed to  me  at  once.  I  don't  pretend  to  declare 
why.  I  suppose  it  was  because  one  has  grown  to 
expect  nothing  of  this  sort  in  our  big,  hard,  cold 
city,  which  imports  its  sentiment  as  it  does  its 
bric-d-brao.  I  have  always  had  a  tenderness  for 
Bowling  Green,  too,  and  the  Battery.  Any  affair 
of  the  heart  which  occurred  there  a  good  many 
years  ago  was  like  finding,  when  I  heard  it,  a 


364  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

pretty  picture  to  fit  a  quaint  frame  long  in  my  pos- 
session. I  tried  to  forget  that  Beau  Billington  had 
been  displumed  as  a  potential  gallant  of  song  and 
story ;  that  he  had  played  his  beau  role  quite  too 
continuously;  that  he  resembled  a  tenor  whose 
Grennaro  and  Manrico  have  once  drawn  forth 
wildest  plaudits,  but  who  has  long  outsung  his 
prime,  and  gets  the  bitter  wage  of  silence  where 
golden  enthusiasm  cheered  him.  I  tried  to  forget 
this,  and  very  fairly  succeeded.  Instead  of  en- 
couraging such  disillusionment,  I  dipped  the 
brush  of  fancy,  as  one  might  say,  into  colonial 
coloring,  and  saw  the  lovers  strolling  together  on 
the  airy  Battery,  —  he  with  a  ruffled  shirt-bosom, 
and  she  in  a  poke-bonnet  and  mitts.  I  saw  the 
rows  of  prim  houses  near  by,  with  their  plain 
black  iron  railings  and  their  white  arched  door- 
ways and  the  dormer-windows  standing  forth 
from  their  sloped  roofs.  Beau  Billington  and  his 
sweetheart  were  so  much  more  agreeable  to  think 
of  than  if  they  had  been  two  modern  lovers  prome- 
nading along  the  brown-stone  smartness  of  Fifth 
Avenue,  —  she  with  French  heels  that  hurt  her, 
and  he  with  an  English  collar  that  hurt  him  ! 

I  was  very  kind  to  Beau  Billington  for  a  year  or 
two  after  that.  And  sometimes  being  kind  to  him 
meant  being  talked  to  by  him  for  perhaps  twenty 
good  minutes  in  some  such  strain  as  the  following: 

"  Yes,  that  little  thing  over  there  in  blue  (or  is 
it  pink? — yes,  pink  —  I  declare  I  forgot  to  call 
the  color  by  the  right  name  — yes,  really  I  did). 


THE    GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONQ.    365 

Well,  now,  what  was  I  just  saying  ?  Oh,  yes !  you 
need  n't  tell  me  "  (Beau  Billington  hated  an  in- 
terruption as  though  it  were  a  troublesome  insect), 
"  for  I  recollect  perfectly  well.  It  was  about  that 
little  thing  over  there  in  blue  —  I  mean  pink  — 
yes,  pink.  Who  'd  ever  suppose  she  could  be  Mar- 
garet Cartwright's  great-grandchild?  I  —  I  do 
believe  there  must  be  some  mistake.  I  used  to 
know  Margaret  Cartwright  as  well!  Why,  bless 
my  soul,  she  married  a  man  old  enough  to  be  her 
father  —  Colonel  Preston,  a  Southerner,  who  'd 
been  all  through  the  Revolution.  Made  her  an 
excellent  husband,  though.  Poor  fellow,  he  died 
long  before  she  did.  But  not  of  old  age  —  died 
from  one  of  his  wounds  —  caught  cold  in  it  going 
one  very  cold  night  to  the  firemen's  ball.  We 
used  to  have  firemen's  balls  in  those  days,  and 
some  of  the  biggest  folks  in  the  city  would  go  to 
'em,  too.  You  see,  the  whole  fire  department  was 
different  then  from  what  it  is  now.  They  did  n't 
have  any  horses  hitched  to  the  engines,  you  under- 
stand —  no  horses  at  all  —  and  "  — 

Perhaps  I  would  break  in  just  here  with  a 
polite  statement  that  I  knew  well  how  the  old  fire 
department  in  New  York  had  been  managed  (or 
mismanaged,  should  I  have  said) ;  and  then, 
backing  away  with  a  smile  or  a  wave  of  the  hand, 
I  would  leave  Beau  Billington  to  find  some  other 
recipient  of  his  garrulity.  For,  on  the  whole, 
being  kind  to  him  was  by  no  means  always  a 
sinecure. 


366  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

At  length  1  awoke  one  evening  to  the  fact  that 
I  had  not  seen  the  old  gentleman  for  several 
weeks.  Learning  his  residence,  I  called  there.  I 
found  him  lying  back  in  an  arm-chair,  quite  alone. 
The  chamber  bore  no  signs  of  poverty,  but  it  was 
grim  and  stiff  in  all  its  appointments.  It  needed 
the  evidence  of  a  woman's  touch.  I  thought  of 

o 

the  dead  and  gone  Elizabeth.  How  different  every- 
thing would  have  been  if  —  But,  good  heavens ! 
of  what  was  I  thinking?  Elizabeth,  even  if  she 
had  married  Beau  Billington,  might  have  lived  to 
a  good  old  age  and  still  long  ago  have  been  in  her 
grave. 

The  old  invalid  smiled  when  he  saw  me ;  but 
while  I  sat  down  beside  him  and  took  his  hand,  he 
gave  me  no  further  sign  of  recognition.  His  old 
voluble  tongue  was  silent  forever.  His  paralysis 
had  affected  him  most  of  all  in  that  way.  Every 
morning  he  would  be  dressed  and  go  to  his  chair, 
walking  feebly,  but  still  walking.  And  there  he 
would  sit  all  day,  never  speaking,  yet  smiling  his 
dim,  vacant,  pathetic  smile,  if  the  doctor  or  the 
landlady  or  his  valet  addressed  him. 

He  was  quite  deserted  by  all  his  friends.  No  ; 
I  should  say  that  he  had  no  friends  left  to  desert 
him.  He  had  lived  too  long.  There  was  no  one 
to  come  except  me.  And  I,  strangely  enough, 
was  a  Manhattan,  —  a  kinsman  of  his  long-lost 
Elizabeth.  Of  course,  if  he  had  had  any  kindred 
here,  it  would  have  been  otherwise.  But  there 
was  not  a  soul  to  whom  one  could  say,  "  Old  Beau 


TEE  GENTLEMAN  WHO  LIVED  TOO  LONG.      367 

Billington  is  dying  at  last,  and  the  tie  of  blood 
makes  it  your  duty  to  seek  him  out  and  watch  be- 
side him."  As  for  his  kindred  in  other  cities  or 
States,  no  one  knew  them.  And  if  any  had  been 
found  there,  they  would  doubtless  have  been  per- 
fect strangers  to  him,  the  children  and  grand-chil- 
dren of  vanished  cousins. 

He  had  lived  too  long  ! 

Often  during  the  days  that  followed,  while  I  sat 
beside  his  arm-chair,  I  told  myself  that  there  was 
infinitely  more  sadness  in  a  fate  like  his  than  in 
having  died  too  early.  The  gods  had  never  loved 
any  human  life  of  which  they  were  willing  to 
make  so  lonely  and  deserted  a  wreck  as  this. 

At  last,  one  spring  evening,  at  about  six  o'clock, 
I  chanced  to  be  sitting  in  his  chamber.  He  had 
dozed  much  during  the  day,  they  told  me ;  but  I 
fancied,  that,  as  I  took  his  hand  and  looked  into 
his  hazel  eyes,  there  was  a  more  intellectual  gleam 
on  his  face  than  he  had  shown  for  weeks  past.  A 
window  was  open  near  his  arm-chair;  the  air  was 
bland  as  June  that  evening,  though  as  yet  it  was 
only  early  May.  I  had  brought  some  white  and 
pink  roses,  and  had  set  them  in  a  vase  on  the 
table  at  his  side,  and  now  their  delicious  odor 
blent  in  some  subtile  way  with  the  serenity  of  the 
chamber,  the  peace  and  repose  of  its  continual  oc- 
cupant, the  drowsy  hum  of  the  great  city  as  it 
ceased  from  its  daily  toil,  and  the  slant,  vernal 
afternoon  light. 

Suddenly  he  turned  and  looked  at  me ;  and  I 


3G8  SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES. 

at  once  saw  a  striking  change  in  his  face.  I  could 
not  have  explained  it;  I  simply  understood  it, 
and  that  was  all. 

I  bent  over  his  chair,  taking  his  hand.  It  occurs 
to  me  now,  as  I  recall  what  happened,  that  I  could 
not  possibly  have  been  mistaken  in  the  single 
faintly-uttered  word  which  appeared  to  float  forth 
from  under  his  snow-white  mustache.  And  that 
word  (unless  I  curiously  underwent  some  delu- 
sion) was  " Elizabeth"  — 

The  next  instant  his  eyes  closed.  And  then, 
only  a  short  time  later,  I  stood  by  his  arm-chair 
and  smelt  the  roses  as  they  scented  the  sweet, 
fresh  spring  twilight,  and  thought,  with  no  sense 
of  death's  chill  or  horror,  — 

"  Perhaps  there  is  a  blessing,  after  all,  in  having 
lived  too  long,  if  only  one  can  pass  away  at  the 
end  as  peacefully  as  Old  Beau  Billington." 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


SONG  AND  STORY 


x  Vol.     i2mo.     $1.50. 


"  He  has  jets  and  impulses  of  genius."  —  Nation. 

"  Never  falling  into  the  snare  of  sound  for  sweet  sound's  sake  only,  his 
pregnant  lines  are  nevertheless  harmonious,  as  though  his  sole  aim  were  har- 
mony. .  .  .  He  has  a  clear  appreciation  of  values;  his  quietest  and  most  sub- 
dued tone  is  instinct  with  the  glow  of  vitality.  Here,  too,  we  perceive  the 
definiteness  and  reach  of  his  imagination;  the  clearness  of  his  vision  and  of 
his  rendering  of  the  vision ;  his  excellent  sense  of  proportion.  .  .  .  The 
poem  in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  of  the  whole  collection  is  a 
short  lyric  entitled  '  Behind  History.'  There  is  contained  in  this  poem  what 
most  writers  would  require  a  volume  to  render.  By  masterly  suggestiveness 
and  lucidity  of  expression  MR.  FAWCETT  has  included  everything :  he  has 
taken  in  the  whole  world  of  a  surging  and  destructive  passion.  Yet  the 
marvellous  condensation  is  accomplished  apparently  with  perfect  ease,  with 
no  trace  of  the  '  labor  to  be  brief.'  "  —  The  Week. 

"Rises  at  times  into  enchanting  beauty  of  treatment."  —  Cleveland 
Leader. 

"Enough  has  been  quoted  in  this  brief  review  to  show  that  MR. 
FAWCETT  has  the  ability  to  take  a  high  rank  among  rising  American, 
poets."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"  This  Greek  art  is  clear  of  sight  and  fine  in  work ;  the  delicately 
chiselled  lines  of  verse  cut  clearly  into  the  imagination,  and  leave  there 
pictures,  striking,  rare,  and  of  almost  startling  newness.  Then  there  is  al- 
ways a  cumulative  force,  gathering  and  consummated  in  the  last  verse.  .  .  . 
The  poem  which  rises  supreme  among  its  fellows,  in  eloquence,  in  unsur- 
passed rhythm  and  grandest  music,  is  « The  Doubter.'  Like  his  former 
poem,  'The  Iceberg,'  it  is  a  rare  literary  treat,  something  to  be  remembered 
forever.  If  all  the  other  poems  were  unworthy  of  a  place  in  the  volume  with 
this  (which  they  are  far  from  being),  SONG  AND  STORY  would  still  claim, 
with  justice,  a  very  high  place  in  English  poetry."  —  University  Monthly. 

"EDGAR  FAWCETT  the  poet  is  in  every  way  the  peer  of  EDGAR 
FAWCETT  the  novelist,  and  saying  that  is  surely  awarding  him  very  high 
and  very  generous  praise.  MR.  FAWCETT  is  one  of  the  most  finished  of  our 
literary  artists ;  and  whether  it  be  in  poetry,  or  whether  it  be  in  prose,  his 
work  betrays  the  same  deft  touch,  the  same  exquisite  polish,  the  same  sat- 
isfying completeness,  vivid  play  of  fancy,  potent  moral  force,  rich  thought, 
and  delighting  facility  of  expression."  —  The  Beacon. 

For  sale  by  Booksellers,      Sent,  post-paid,   on    receipt   of  price,  by  the 
Publishers, 

TICKNOR   AND  COMPANY.   BOSTON. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


LD  21A-40m-4,'63 
(D6471slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


fc»T  ^,\s  V  \J  •          JJ  I  I 

Social  si.lhoutfces 


so 


118708338 


Scr 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


